4.5 stars. I was informed that I might love Clancy Donovan as much as Rob MacKenzie and I was skeptical. I should have known better! Listen to your elders. ;) The long and the short of it is that this was another great story by Laurie Breton that will make you want to sit down and read it until you are done. Though there is a crime element to the tale, at its heart it is a story about love and forgiveness, about accepting your mistakes and defining your life not by where you've been, but by where you are going.I think in the hands of a lesser writer this story could have been a disaster. With weaker characters, the story could have been trite and even ridiculous. But once again, Laurie Breton crafts believable characters worthy of our empathy in a setting that makes the whole narrative feel very real. I lived in Boston for a little while and she definitely captures the feel of the city. She loves it, she knows it well and you can tell. I think it's too bad if this gets pigeonholed into 'romantic suspense', because good, character driven stories, to me, shouldn't be judged by their plots.I can definitely see how this is a divisive book; I could probably write a 5-page essay about it. If ever a story had 'shades of grey', this would be it. I think if you read this story in black and white, you will miss so much that you will not be able to fully enjoy it. Read it in technicolor and you'll get the full effect.Some minor points: not all priests are stodgy old men and truthfully, the most effective ones fully understand their congregation. Clancy isn't 'cool', or even 'hot', he's a young priest who has been there, done that, bought the t-shirt and hopes to prevent the local youth from getting their own souvenir apparel. No punk kid from Southie is going to walk all over a guy who has his number. His appeal is more about his personality than it is about his looks, though that doesn't mean he's ugly. And Sarah's use of the word 'sugar' conveys her still-strong ties to her southern roots, so it helps to remind us that she's not a native, unlike Clancy. She's one tough broad, but like she says, she was dirt poor but that didn't mean they were dirt; it's a sense of pride that's very different from the working poor in Greater Boston and her language is meant to help you recall the difference. Taking issue with all these things is, to me, a way to say you didn't like the characters, and that's fine; it doesn't mean they aren't well-written, just that they weren't people you'd like. You can't please everyone.I don't personally have allegiance to the Catholic Church and frankly, the celibacy of priests is just one of the many things that confound me about it. But I think, like other reviewers have said, I have an expectation that a priest will honor his vows. Otherwise, why did he choose to be a Catholic priest? However, looking at this story in technicolor makes me realize that it's not about Clancy choosing love (or sex) over God. It's more about him coming to terms with the fact that the priesthood, as a vocation, was probably not God's plan for him so much as a means for God to keep him on the straight and narrow until Clancy was ready to embrace the plan. The saying goes that "People come into your life for a reason, a season or a lifetime" and I think that's true not just of people but of things in our life, as well. This story is just one illustration of that principle. I believe it's unfair to expect priests to stay in the same career their whole life. Clergy that are the most effective are the ones who are happy in the job they are doing, no different than any other occupation. My own personal God knows that and reacts accordingly. But then, my God doesn't heap on the Catholic guilt.
