Temptation is a devastating mistress.
Crossed is a dark contemporary romance novel written by Emily McIntire in August 2023, based on The Hunchback of Notre Dame.
Father Cade Frederic was called from Paris, France, to step in as the new priest in the historic town of Festivale, Vermont. However, he has a mission he believes God gave him: purge the town of sinners, among the worst being the mayor of the town itself, Parker Errien. Though, he carries a darker side within himself, something that seeks to exact the will of God by any means necessary.
Amaya Paquette lives her life in a relentless struggle. By day, she tries her hardest to take care of her little brother and protect him from those who won't accept him. By night, she dances for pay acquired from those who come to see the mysterious beauty called "Esmeralda". However, she carries deep scars from a past riddled with loneliness and pain afflicted by one person who made her life a living hell.
When Cade encounters Amaya, his beliefs collide with his desires, threatening to let loose his inner demons he tried to keep contained. Thinking she must've cast a spell on him, he resolves to do whatever it takes to make her his.
Crossed contains the following examples:
- Age-Gap Romance: A slow burn type between Cade and Amaya, with Cade being in his late 30s and Amaya being in her early 20s
- Asshole Victim: Parker and Florence.
- Parker made Amaya's life difficult because he had originally engaged in a relationship with her mother - only to also fool around with Florence as well behind her back, then violated Amaya when she unwittingly discovered his secret, and relentlessly demanded payment from her while trying to force her to marry him. When Cade finds out how much pain he caused Amaya, he tracked him down, tortured him and killed him to avenge her.
- Florence has hated Amaya ever since she came into town with her mother, and she wasn't afraid to insult her whenever she could. However, when she goes so far as to name Quinten "The King of Fool" solely to mock Amaya and her brother, she finds herself on the receiving end of Amaya's wrath and beaten badly (but not killed), and then blackmailed by Cade when he revealed what dirty secrets about her that he uncovered.
- Amoral Attorney: Florence is a practicing attorney in Festivale. However, she not only antagonizes Amaya every time she crosses paths with her, but she also engages in an affair with Parker behind her husband's back, resulting in her son.
- Blackmail: Cade takes advantage of Florence's situation in the hospital to threaten to expose to the entire town her dirty secrets tying her to Parker if she didn't comply with his demands for her to cease giving Amaya trouble.
- Corrupt Church: Cade perceives Festivale's Notre-Dame cathedral as this because of Parker's influence on the town and the church itself.
- Dark Shepherd: Cade believed that he is a man sent to carry out God's will and save lost souls from their sins. However, because of his abusive upbringing, he came to believe he must purge the sins of others by any means necessary - including violence.
- Disposable Sex Worker: In the prologue, a sex worker - later mentioned to be an acquaintance of Dalia's named Candice - is the first victim by Cade's hands via strangulation.
- Due to the Dead: With the funding she acquired from Parker's assets, Amaya establishes a club called Dalia's Dancers as tribute to her friend.
- Hypocrite: Florence despises Amaya because Parker has been obsessed with her, yet she herself has been having repeated affairs with him despite having a husband herself.
- Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places: For as long as Amaya could remember, her mother was always trying to enter a relationship with different men that, for one reason or another, ends in disaster and subsequently leading to them constantly moving to a new town.
- Lust: Parker has an obsessive desire over Amaya despite all the pain he caused her, partly because of her ties to her mother and partly because he wanted to lay claims to her as his wife.
- Madonna-Whore Complex: Cade wrestles with this after encountering Amaya for the first time, believing her to be a sinful person engaging in vulgar business that goes against God, even thinking her a witch. However, when he crosses paths with her more and grows friendly with her little brother, his perspective gradually changes.
- Mal Mariée: Amaya was forced into marriage with Parker (who had been obsessed with her for some time), which she only went along with to avoid being accused of murdering a former visitor at the strip club she worked in. It doesn't last long.
- Matricide: Upon finding out her mother had been hiding as a nun and didn't give any thought to the wellbeing of her children, let alone come back for them, Amaya snaps and kills her mother in a fit of rage.
- Mayor Pain: Parker not only runs Festivale with even the church in his back pocket, but he also uses his position as a mean to extort money out of Amaya.
- Parental Abandonment: Amaya and Quinten's mother abandoned them while Quinten was still a very young child, leaving Amaya to care for him on her own.
- Pet the Dog: Cade has his moments before his Character Development.
- In one chapter, Cade expresses sympathy for a woman who only turned to thievery to support her loved ones.
- When Cade crosses paths with Amaya, he is surprisingly friendly towards her little brother, Quinten.
- Promotion to Parent: After their mother ran off and abandoned them, Amaya took it upon herself to be Quinten's primary carer.
- Rape as Backstory: When Amaya was only a teen, she was raped by Parker to keep her from telling her mother that he had been fooling with other women besides her. Since then, he had been repeatedly pursuing her regardless of the fact she hated him for the pain he caused her.
- Related in the Adaptation: The Esmeralda and Quasimodo equivalents are now biologically related to each other through the same mother.
- Secret Sex Worker: In order to provide for herself and her brother (and unfortunately, pay off Parker to leave them alone), Amaya works in a strip club at night under the stage name "Esmeralda".
- Serial Killings, Specific Target: Zig-Zagged. Cade's main target is Parker. However, when his murder of a strip club client led to Amaya being suspected as the murderer, he killed another stranger to make it look as though there is a serial killer and shift suspicions away from her. He stills succeeds in killing Parker, but with the intention of taking revenge for Amaya's suffering by Parker's hands rather than just administering God's judgment against him.
- Sinister Suffocation: Cade's method of killing whoever he believes too sinful to live.
- Stalker with a Crush: Cade, though he tries to deny his attraction to Amaya initially. It hasn't stopped him from following her every chance he can get and watching her from a distance.
- Would Hit a Girl: Parker takes his cruelty a step further when he brutally killed Dalia, the only friend Amaya ever had.
