The Virgin by Tiffany Reisz Book Review
Updated: Jan 23
The Virgin
by Tiffany Reisz
Published by MIRA books
Book #7 in the Original Sinners Series
The controversial story before the story continues in the critically acclaimed and award-winning series The Original Sinners.
For years, Kingsley Edge warned Eleanor the day would come when she, the mistress of a well-respected Catholic priest, would have to run and hide. She always imagined if that day came she'd be running away with Søren. But instead, she's running from him.
Knowing Søren and Kingsley will their use their influence to bring her back, Eleanor alone, penniless and scared takes refuge at the one place the men in her life cannot follow: the abbey where her mother has taken orders. Behind the cloistered gates of the convent, Eleanor hides from the man she loves and hates in equal measure
She cannot, however, hide from her true nature. When Eleanor befriends a young virginal nun, she faces a startling sexual awakening. But Eleanor can't stay forever, and the lure of her real life beckons beyond the locked gates. But to follow her fate means to leave Kyrie behind, a sacrifice Eleanor refuses to make
The lure of the forbidden. The temptation to sin. The price of passion has never been higher, and Eleanor will have to pay it if she ever wants to go home again
RATED: 18+ CATEGORY: MOOD:
Steamy #Erotica Bittersweet
#Dark Romance
The Virgin by Tiffany Reisz is the seventh book in the Original Sinners Series, and centers around Eleanor/Elle/Nora and Kingsley, telling each other and Soren what happened during the year they were parted from one another after Eleanor left Soren. There are three different timelines in this book, the present, the past before Eleanor's pregnancy, and the past, after the pregnancy.
There were things I loved about this book, and things I liked, but wasn't overly crazy about. I loved having Soren, Nora, and Kingsley back together again, finally. I love the setting, and how utterly happy and content they all are. I enjoyed the different timelines, but sometimes the timelines in the past were confusing, as anything that happened before Eleanor left was memories and dreams. It made it hard to sometimes focus on where we were in the story. I wasn't overly fond of Elle's time in the convent, or her story arc with Kyrie. It was predictable in how it played out, and ended. In The Angel, when Nora visits her mother, her mother mentioned that Nora gave them six years of dinner conversation material with her antics ... I was really hoping to see more ... actually any of that.
The only two new characters in this book are Kingsley's Juliette and Kyrie, the virginal nun. Juliette is mentioned a lot in the books, but this was a small story that gives us insight into who she is, and why Kingsley is so enamored with her. I like the fact that she is so independent everywhere but the bedroom, which is the type of woman Kingsley needs in his life. I wasn't overly impressed with Kyrie, and I guess I just don't understand Elle's fascination with her, other than to balm her loneliness, and to experiment her newly found dominant side. Eleanor's arc from submissive to switch was fascinating. I always thought Soren asking her to marry him was why she left, but the added fight and him refusing to acknowledge that part of her was a surprising, and enlightening twist that I enjoyed. Kingsley journey to heal from the loss of the child he always wanted, and finding the love of his life, with a woman who wants to have children with him was a beautiful and sad story.
In the end, while this one was not my favorite (and I unfortunately went into it knowing it would be my least favorite, because of the lack of Soren), I do highly recommend reading it. Not just because it physically pains me to think of someone skipping a book in a series, but because there is a lot of character growth in this novel that is important to the series as a whole. As I have with every review in this series, I highly suggest you pick up all the books. I swear you won't regret it.
Where to Buy
Paperback (amazon)
Paperback (Chapters/Indigo)
Nora: "Miss, you've signed the nondisclosure agreement, haven't you?"
Girl: "Yes, ma'am?"
Nora: "Good. This man is a Catholic priest. We've been sleeping together since I was twenty. I'm sure you can imagine it's not easy being the mistress of a Catholic priest. We don't get to spend nearly the amount of time together we'd like to. In fact, I haven't seen him in five weeks. Admittedly that's because I was sleeping with someone else most of the time, but that's neither here nor there. As you can see, my priest here is possibly the most handsome man in the world, although I am admittedly biased. He's also kinky, well-hung and you've just interrupted the kiss I've been waiting for all day. So please tell me this interruption is more important than that kiss was."
Girl: "Your dress is here. We hung it in your room. You told me to tell you when it arrived and to interrupt you no matter what you were doing even if you were, as you said, 'blowing the pope.'"
Girl: "Catholic priest?"
Søren: "No comment."
Girl: "We had a priest like you when I was a girl. We called him Father What-A-Waste. Glad you're not going to waste."
Nora: "I never asked you what you did while I was gone."
Søren: "Suffered."
Kingsley: "Take off your pants if you want me to live."
Søren: "You've tried that line before. It didn't work the last time you tried it, wither."
Kingsley: "I'm a dead man then."
Nora: "Why do you need Søren to take his pants off? I mean, other than the usual reason."
Kingsley pointed down to himself.
Kingsley: "That's why."
Nora: "Juliette has a kilt fetish?"
Kingsley: "A newly discovered kilt fetish. She's had me three times today already -"
Søren: "You're her Dominant. Satisfying her needs is your job."
Kingsley: "She's hunting me down for a fourth. I'm a man, not a machine. I feel violated, used ..."
Søren: "You're being melodramatic. You know you love it."
Kingsley: "Why does she keep calling me Connor in bed?"
Nora: "This explains why she's always trying to make me watch Highlander with her."
Kingsley: "Please don't make me go. I swear it'll break off if she gets her hands on me again.
Søren: "Throw him out."
Nora: "You heard the man. The priest has spoken."
Kingsley: "I'll be dead by morning."
Nora: "We'll miss you very much. I have my collar on. I have to follow orders."
Kingsley: "I'll beg for my life. How's that?"
Søren: "Beg then. I'd like to hear this."
Nora: "He's in a mood. I had to beg for my orgasm."
Søren: "Perhaps Eleanor would be willing to tell us about the time she, and I quote, 'fucked a nun' at her mother's convent."
Kingsley: "You fucked a nun at your mother's convent? When did that happen?"
Nora: "That year."
Kingsley: "You never told me?"
Nora: "How is me sleeping with a nun any of your business?"
Kingsley: "Because it's you sleeping with a nun. That is the very definition of my business. I need to know what she looked like, her name, if she had small breasts or large. Do you have pictures of her and you together? And can you tell me exactly what you did with her in detail while I take notes?"
Nora: "I could. I'm not going to."
Søren: "I could order you to."
Nora groaned.
Nora: "You're as bad as he is. You're perverts, the both of you. J'accuse."
Kingsley: "J'accepte."
Nora: "That was a really hard year for all of us. And it was twelve years ago. Can you give me one good reason why we should dredge all of that up tonight."
Kingsley: "I can. Because you fucked a nun. C'est la raison."
Nora: "Dear Lord, save me from these men tonight."
Søren: "Ignorance is a poor excuse for bliss."
Mom: "You were fifteen when you met him. He groomed you."
Elle: "I was also fifteen when I first tried to get him in bed. I came pre-groomed."
Sister Aquinas: "Pride is a sin, young lady."
Elle: "Put it on my tab."
Memory:
Griffin: "I've been in rehab for the past month. If I don't fuck soon, I will literally die."
Søren: "We can't have that. Eleanor's fond of you, Griffin. I think she'd be most heartbroken if something happened to you."
Eleanor: "I would, Griff. You're my favorite rookie."
Griffin: "I should spank you for calling me that."
Søren: "You should. She won't learn to respect your authority any other way."
Griffin: "Come here, bad girl. I have a present to deliver."
For a moment she forgot she had an audience until Griffin threw her onto her back in a quick show of power and dominance. She gasped in surprise. From the back of the Rolls, Kingsley and Søren applauded.
Kingsley: "Good show. Nice technique."
Søren: "It's not easy to catch her off guard."
Griffin: "Are you two going to comment the entire time?"
Kingsley: "Of course. I'm the French judge. He's the Danish judge."
Kingsley handed Søren a set of cards with the numbers one through ten on them. Score cards.
Griffin: "You've got to be kidding me."
Kingsley: "Be glad Mistress Irina isn't here, Griffin. No one ever impresses the Russian judge."
Kingsley: "A master. Sadism by pleasure is as vicious as sadism by pain."
Griffin: "I'm learning this."
Eleanor: "Don't learn from him. I have all the sadists I need already."
Juliette: "I don't care. What you do doesn't matter to me."
Kingsley: "I want it to."
Juliette: "Why?"
Kingsley: "I want you to like me. Do you?"
Juliette: "Not yet. Why do you want me to like you?"
Kingsley: "Because you are the most beautiful woman I've ever seen."
Juliette: "You think you can improve on the Bible?"
Kingsley: "I can. It says 'I am black but lovely.' The woman I see is 'black and lovely.'"
Juliette: "You're trying to seduce me."
Kingsley: "Is it working?"
Juliette: "Yes."
Elle: "Sisyphus, the mythological figure. The guy who had to roll a stone up a hill for eternity. Laundry is the ultimate Sisyphean task - clean, dirty, wash, rinse, dry, repeat ad infinitum."
Kyrie: "You know what would help? Nudism."
Elle stared at her.
Elle: "You are a weird nun."
Kyrie: "I know. Sorry."
Elle: "Don't be sorry. You'll fit right in with all the other weird nuns here."
Kyrie: "You think we're all weird?"
Elle: "If you met a homeless person on the street who claimed to be the bride of Jesus Christ, what would you say to her?"
Kyrie: "I'd ask her if her husband was a good kisser."
Kyrie: "Is it over? Am I dead? Is this Heaven?"
Elle: "This is Purgatory."
Kyrie: "I'm in Purgatory? Well, crap. Mom told me this would happen if I didn't stop touching myself."
Kyrie: "Wow. You are really smart."
Elle: "Genius IQ, and I'm working in a laundry at a convent."
Elle: "I miss parts of it."
Kyrie: "What do you miss?"
Elle looked her straight in the eyes.
Elle: "Sex."
Kyrie: "Is it as much fun as it sounds?"
Elle: "Oh my God, I can't get rid of you, can I?"
Kyrie: "You can't. I haven't had this much fun since I came here. You are really grumpy, and I like it. Say something grumpy to me again."
Elle: "You must be a masochist."
Kyrie: "A what?"
Elle: "A masochist. Someone who takes pleasure from pain and humiliation."
Kyrie: "Well ... I did join a convent."
Elle: "Good point. Look, you seem very nice."
Kyrie: "I am very nice. I am the nicest person I know."
Elle: "You're a real Polly-fucking-Anna, aren't you?"
Kyrie: "I am. Also, Polly Fucking Anna would make a great name for a lesbian porno."
Elle glared at her.
Kyrie: "Oh, scary face."
Kyrie: "You can't do anything else?"
Elle: "I give good blow jobs. I'll leave the convent and become a prostitute."
Kyrie: "I bet I'd suck at blowing. It seems hard."
Elle looked up and glared at Kyrie.
Elle: "Did you make a dick joke?"
Kyrie: "I did! I'm not sure if I've ever done that before."
Juliette: "I'm Catholic."
Kingsley: "Pull the car over."
Juliette: "You don't like Catholics?"
Kingsley: "I have a long complicated history with a Catholic priest of my acquaintance."
Juliette: "Is he a bad priest?"
Kingsley: "Very bad. He never preaches about sin, only God's love and forgiveness. He doesn't judge sinners and he works tirelessly at his parish on behalf of the poor and oppressed."
Juliette: "Sounds like a good priest to me. Is he a bad person?"
Kingsley: "He would die for the people he loved. I think he would even die for me."
Juliette: "And you hate him?"
Kingsley: "And you hate him?"
Juliette: "Why?"
Kingsley: "Because he hurt his lover and made her leave him."
Juliette: "And?"
Kingsley: "She was my lover, too. Then again, so was he one. More than once."
Juliette: "I think I was wrong about you, Kingsley. I think I like you."
Kingsley: "You didn't like me before?"
Juliette: "No."
Kingsley: "Then why did you let me in your car?"
Juliette: "I wanted you to fuck me."
Kingsley: "Flattering. I think."
Juliette: "You can take it as a compliment."
Juliette: "DO you want my autobiography or do you want to have me?"
Kingsley: "I want both."
Kingsley; "Well ... for starters, how do you like to be fucked?"
Juliette: "I like it rough."
Kingsley: "Rough? On a scale of one to ten..."
Juliette: "What's one?"
Kingsley: "You fall asleep while I'm on top of you."
Juliette: "Ten?"
Kingsley: "Hospitalization."
Juliette: "Nine."
Kingsley: "Nine. Nine if very rough."
Juliette: "If nine is too much for you, take the car and drive yourself home. I don't like having my time wasted."
Kingsley: "Trust me. I won't waste your time."
Juliette: "I'm yours. Make me yours in every way."
Kingsley: "But only tonight?"
Juliette: "Only tonight."
Kingsley: "What if tonight isn't enough?"
Juliette: "It has to be."
Kingsley: "Then start praying."
Juliette: "Praying for what?"
Kingsley: "That this night never ends."
Kingsley: "One night isn't enough."
Juliette: "How many nights would be enough?"
Kingsley: "All your nights."
Elle: "Daphne and Apollo. They're my favorite. The original love-hate relationship."
Kyrie: "Who were they?"
Elle: "Daphne was a forest nymph and beautiful beyond imagining. Apollo was the god of music, reason and healing. He came upon Cupid one day playing with his bow and arrows -"
Kyrie: "Masturbating?"
Elle: "No, I think these were literal bows and arrows."
Kyrie: "Continue the story please. I'll adjust my mental images."
Elle: "Apollo teased little Cupid about his prowess with his bow."
Kyrie: "Are we sure they're not talking about penises?"
Elle: "Might be in the subtext. Apollo teased Cupid about his little bow and arrow or maybe his penis. I don't know. So Cupid, pissed off at Apollo for his arrogance, picks up two arrows. One is tipped in lead. One is tipped in gold. He shoots the arrow tipped in lead into the heart of Daphne the beautiful forest nymph. The arrow tipped in gold he shoots into the heart of Apollo. At once Apollo is seized by desperate love for Daphne. And she is seized by hatred of Apollo. He chases after her through the forest while she runs from him as fast as she can. But Apollo gains on her so she prays to her father the river god to turn her into something so Apollo can't have her. Her father turns her into a laurel tree. From there and ever after, the laurel became the symbol of Apollo."
Kyrie: "Wait. This girl turns into a tree rather that let Apollo have her? That's crazy."
Elle: "I know. But what do you expect from a patriarchal society that prized virginity so highly? Better a woman be a tree or a stone or some kind of mindless but pure object than be sullied by sex."
Kyrie: "Terrible ending. Very disappointing."
Elle: "I didn't write it. If I wrote it, there would be much more sex in the story."
Calliope: "Um ... well, one rumor I heard is that you and Elle fell in love. You stole her from her priest and eloped with her. You two are supposedly on an around-the-world honeymoon."
Kingsley: "She would commit ritual suicide in Times Square before she married me."
Kyrie: "You've had tree sex?"
Elle: "Not with a tree. Against a tree."
Kyrie: "Oh my. Tell me all."
Elle: "I had sex once and it was against a tree. The end."
Memory:
Kingsley: "Beat me then. And don't be afraid to hit hard. Most new Doms are too gentle, too careful. You can strike me as hard -"
Kingsley screamed.
Eleanor: "You were saying?"
Kingsley: "Nothing. I was saying nothing."
Eleanor: "Good. Shut up. Stand there. And don't talk. Unless you want to say 'ouch.' That you can say."
After beating him
Kingsley: "Jesus Christ. Do they teach all Catholics how to hurt people like this? Or is it just you two monsters?"
Eleanor: "Søren's sadism is self-taught. And I learned from Søren."
Kingsley: "No one's ever hurt me as much as he has."
Eleanor: "Good."
Kingsley: "Why is that good?"
Eleanor: "I love a challenge."
Kingsley: "I miss you, mon ami. But I am still so angry at you. With Elle ... it wasn't like you and me. Or you and her. I had to work to love her. It didn't come easy. You chose her over me and it hurt, and it will always hurt. But I learned to love her despite all that, and that should tell you how close we are that I could overcome how much I wanted to hate her. You were right about her, about what she could be to us. But I was right, too. I was right about what she is and what she needs. I was right, and you didn't listen to me. And now she's gone. And it's your fault. And it's my fault. What happened between me and Elle ... it was between be and Elle. Not you. You had no part of it. And that's why you were angry, no? That's why you did what you did and made her run away from you, away from us? Because there is a part of her that has nothing to do with you and you were ... And you were scared."
Elle: "Can you hear that?"
Kyrie: "No, what is it?"
Elle: "God laughing at me."
Juliette: "Mon roi. I want to tell you something."
Kingsley: "Don't say it."
Juliette: "You don't know what it is."
Kingsley: "I know."
Juliette: "You know I'm in love with you?"
Kingsley: "Oui. But don't say it."
Juliette: "Why not?"
Kingsley: "Because I can't have you. I can't keep you. You aren't mine."
Juliette: "Then I don't love you. I don't love you with all my hear and with every inch of my body. I don't love you now and always."
Kingsley: "I will never love you, either"
Memory:
Kingsley: "He fucked the life out of me, Elle. Every other time we used lube but that night, there was only blood. My blood. And I hope God is as understanding as you two like to tell me He is, because if I get to Heaven and God wants to wipe my memory of the night and take away the blood and the pain, I'll turn on my heel and walk straight into Hell just to keep the memory."
Kingsley: "Why can't I ever fall in love with a normal woman? Just once ..."
He looked up at the sky hoping for an answer.
Kingsley: "Too much to ask? One normal woman? Or man. I'm not picky. You know me. Someone without a horrible childhood and no kinks that will get me killed."
Juliette: "I've never brought him here. I've never brought anyone here. This is my secret place."
Kingsley: "Then why did you bring me here?"
Juliette: "Because you are my other secret place now."
She rested her hand on his bare chest over his heart.
Elle: "He was in charge of my probation, remember? And I had to keep my grades up. One day I was struggling really hard with my pre-calculus. I was in tears because I couldn't figure i t out. He caught my crying into my math book. SO he made me some hot chocolate and sat next to me on that bench that's across from his office door. And he told me he'd seen my school records and that my IQ was something very special. I told him didn't feel very smart right then. He said IQ wasn't a measurement of what you know but how fast your brain works. If the b rain was an athlete, then math wasn't my event. But someday I would find my event and when I did, nothing would stop me from doing whatever I wanted to do with my life. Then he helped me with my homework until I had it halfway figured out. Maybe this is my event."
Elle: "I was an arrogant little shit."
Mom: "Was?"
Elle: "Okay, I am. Still am."
Kyrie: "I can't believe a little thing like that can cause so much pain."
Elle: "Cane are vicious bitches."
Kyrie: "I was talking about you."
Elle: "I'm a vicious little bitch, too."
Memory
Søren: "I love you, Little One. Now and always. And nothing you can do will take my love away from you. I will never leave you. You're mine now and always ..."