The Confessions: An Original Sinners Collection

Secrets of Father Marcus (Soren) Stearn and Eleanor (Nora) Schreiber confessed to priest Father Ballard. Tiffany talks of her characters in The Original Sinners series.

“Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned.”

FAIR WARNING: I believe my review will contain SPOILERS. In fact one should read the entire “The Original Sinners” Series before reading “The Confessions”. It is, itself, a giant spoiler.

My literary friends, I had been thoroughly captured heart and soul by this series. After reading through to “The Mistress”, I had a visceral reaction to the ending of this book. That Soren would have penetrative sex with Grace and she conceived his child had my heart and mind in an uproar. I expected more from him. I expected fidelity. Of course these are my personal expectations of a fictional character in a work of fiction envisioned by a clever, insightful and creative writer. Crazy…Right?

I tried to examine my strong reaction to this event. Heretofore, I was thoroughly enjoying this series. I am a cradle Catholic. My personal experiences with the clergy of the church have not been ideal. I do however, understand both loving your religious tradition and at the very same time, abhorring the paternalistic, often anti woman, even demeaning of woman misdirection of this ancient religion that in my humble opinion hardly resembles what Christ envisioned for His followers.

I concurred with the ideas presented in the series that love, real love could never be a sin. I am broad minded about all the BDSM elements. I find them intriguing, sometimes, though, cringe worthy as passions overwhelm the lovers. I believe…in some way…all clergy have some sadism in them. This is probably a function of early childhood experiences in Catholic school. Soren was cast as irresistible to me…a highly intelligent, highly disciplined, loving priest that was sexy beyond cliche’. One of the best things going for him was his fidelity to his loves, Kingsley and Nora.

Then after barely rescuing his love, Nora, and making it out of a life-threatening situation alive himself, he plants his seed in another woman he has only known for days. He had to know she was not on birth control. She had to know she was in the fertile time of her month. Was he so greedy of all of life’s blessings that he had to try to have a child? Now that he does…he will never be a father to this little one. My understanding is that he will meet him at least one time. Then what? What about Nora? No matter this character, Nora’s protestations that she never wanted a child, from all the character development of Nora, I cannot believe that Nora is not hurt in some visceral way as me, the reader, who understood her and identified with her.

I have always kept my head in reading even the darkest love story. I pretty much accepted the character presentation by the author. Here and there I may have found that there were inconsistencies from one idea presented to the next but that was simply mediocre writing or mistakes of a developing writer. Neither is the case here. Certainly the writing is not mediocre and the development of these characters has followed understandable, although intricate emotional shifts.

I had an idea. I thought that because we were never privileged to read Soren’s POV that perhaps if I read his confession, I would find a greater understanding of his character and what he was thinking…whether he had any remorse in his actions. Of course the writer fleshed out his character more like a variation on a theme but nothing forthcoming about his feelings at being a father.

In Nora’s confession there was an acknowledgement of her having a negative emotion at discovering a photo of Fionn nursing at the breast of Grace in Soren’s bible. The message on the back of the photo indicated that Soren had requested such a photo from Grace. Nora confessed this as a sin of jealousy. I believe it is more the pain of hurt. Hurt being a form of anger.

What follows is Nora reconciling herself to the circumstances of her life. She realizes that Soren’s actions were motivated by his secret desires and needs that he did not wish to impose on her. It is not enough for me. Soren has lost some of his cache as a character for me. It appears that publicly acknowledging his son will be the straw that breaks the camel’s back and he will be defrocked. He is willing to give up the priesthood for his distant son but he never seriously considered it for Nora. One can do good works, pray just as fervently, venerate the sacraments as a Deacon or laity. He could even become an Episcopalian priest. Never for Nora???

Did he really need the fruit of his “own loins”. Are there not enough children unwanted and in need of a home in this world that could have used him as a father? Is having both a genetic and real father in Zach really going to be fair to his faraway son?

While I enjoy this series and probably will continue to enjoy it as I go back to the point I left off, some of my love and passion has diminished.

Once again, I must reiterate that these are my crazy feelings and thoughts. Perhaps they were borne out of the fact that every encounter I had with a Catholic priest or religious person resulted in profound disappointment. Maybe, I judge Soren too harshly and should just let him be the character that Ms. Reisz created him to be. However, in doing this, part of my heart must close itself off where once it was wide open. Of course. there is always Kingsley. Now he remains irresistible!!!