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mxphoebesviewpoint's review
4.0
Lesbians, literature, mysteries, and secrets bring a doctorate student and a professor together, but will it end up splitting them apart?
Victoria “Rory” Carlisle of the posh Cotswolds Carlisle family requests Oxford Professor Helen Swift to be her Doctorate adviser on lesbians in literature. Helen decides to accept Rory as her last doctoral candidate to Rory’s delight as no one but Helen would do as Rory has a serious crush on the much older professor. Unbeknownst to anyone though, Helen is keeping a secret and is deciding whether to semi-retire. Spending time together on Rory’s thesis and impromptu get-togethers, Helen starts to have feelings for Rory that are inappropriate for a professor to have for a student and soon that boundary does not matter. Sooner rather than later, secrets start to come out and feelings can not be denied as everyone from Helen’s ex-girlfriend, to her best-friend, and Rory herself start to push Helen to make a decision which will decide who gets a “happily ever after”.
Reading can be funny sometimes. This is the last book in “The Village Romance” trilogy and I ended up reading it first. I had clicked on a book on my Kindle thinking it was a different book entirely and by a different author! Reading this book, I thought, “Wow this writer has really changed her style and I like it!”
I loved this story even though I am not a huge fan of May/December romances (for those who may not know what that is: It is when there is an age gap between the two parties). I really liked the secondary characters, except for the ex-girlfriend (laugh). The sex is okay and once I realized the author is Harper Bliss – it is really tame. I find Rory’s thesis really interesting too. I got to the end of A Lesson in Love (2019) and noticed the references to the author’s other books and said, “Hey…wait a minute….” (laugh)
Sometimes it is really nice to read an author you have visited with many times with fresh eyes. It reminds you why started crushing on them in the first place. It gives you back that feeling of, “Oh yeah that’s why I like them so much.” Bliss gives you the romance you need and you never want to throw her out of bed even if she is eating cookies.
Victoria “Rory” Carlisle of the posh Cotswolds Carlisle family requests Oxford Professor Helen Swift to be her Doctorate adviser on lesbians in literature. Helen decides to accept Rory as her last doctoral candidate to Rory’s delight as no one but Helen would do as Rory has a serious crush on the much older professor. Unbeknownst to anyone though, Helen is keeping a secret and is deciding whether to semi-retire. Spending time together on Rory’s thesis and impromptu get-togethers, Helen starts to have feelings for Rory that are inappropriate for a professor to have for a student and soon that boundary does not matter. Sooner rather than later, secrets start to come out and feelings can not be denied as everyone from Helen’s ex-girlfriend, to her best-friend, and Rory herself start to push Helen to make a decision which will decide who gets a “happily ever after”.
Reading can be funny sometimes. This is the last book in “The Village Romance” trilogy and I ended up reading it first. I had clicked on a book on my Kindle thinking it was a different book entirely and by a different author! Reading this book, I thought, “Wow this writer has really changed her style and I like it!”
I loved this story even though I am not a huge fan of May/December romances (for those who may not know what that is: It is when there is an age gap between the two parties). I really liked the secondary characters, except for the ex-girlfriend (laugh). The sex is okay and once I realized the author is Harper Bliss – it is really tame. I find Rory’s thesis really interesting too. I got to the end of A Lesson in Love (2019) and noticed the references to the author’s other books and said, “Hey…wait a minute….” (laugh)
Sometimes it is really nice to read an author you have visited with many times with fresh eyes. It reminds you why started crushing on them in the first place. It gives you back that feeling of, “Oh yeah that’s why I like them so much.” Bliss gives you the romance you need and you never want to throw her out of bed even if she is eating cookies.
lilith89ibz's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
lighthearted
slow-paced
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
This was my first Bliss novel, and what a breath of fresh air. The pining!!! It was fun, with just enough uncertainty to keep you hooked, an overall adorable story, with actual consenting adults and no deaths! A unicorn in the lesbian fiction world, as we all know. I would like to personally thank Harper Bliss from the bottom of my gay heart for writing something this wholesome.
lezreviewbooks's review against another edition
5.0
Helen Swift is a 49-year-old Oxford University professor with a midlife crisis and a secret life as a cozy mystery author. When she meets her new DPhil supervisee, Victoria ‘Rory’ Carlisle, things start to spiral out of control fast. Rory is young, charming, gorgeous and so off-limits. Their mutual attraction is hard to resist but a romantic involvement between supervisor and student is frown upon. Can they have a future together?
This is book 3 of ‘The Village Romance’ series of three romance novels by T.B. Markinson, Clare Lydon and Harper Bliss set around a small town in the Cotswolds, England. Even though the main characters in each novel make an appearance in the others, each story is completely independent of the other two and can be read as standalone. I recommend reading all three books because they are equally enjoyable.
Full disclosure, I beta-read this novel by the author’s request. My input is very minor, focusing solely in the academic process of getting a DPhil/PhD in England. For this reason, I read it twice in the span of a couple of months and enjoyed it both times.
This is an age-gap romance, a type Ms. Bliss specialises in. She really excels at describing the temptation of the forbidden attraction, the inner control that the older character wants to maintain, the boldness of the younger one and the social pressure surrounding them. She did it really well in her book ‘Seasons of love’ and did it again in this one. In ‘A lesson in love’, this conflict is heightened by the fact that the mains are teacher and student, supervisor and supervisee. It’s another layer of forbidden love that brings the tension a few notches up.
Written in first person from the point of view of both main characters, the reader gets a glimpse of their doubts and fears but also their desire and joy. Ms. Bliss builds the tension exquisitely until it could be cut with the proverbial knife. The reader is left hanging for a while until this tension is inevitably shattered into pieces by the force of their emotions. And here the author excels again at showing the passion in the intimate scenes which, in this story, were superb. Ms. Bliss is, hands down, one of the best writers of sex scenes in lesfic.
The book is completed by a group of well-written secondary characters and an interesting debate about whether popular genre books should be considered a lesser form of literature as they normally don’t ponder about the human condition.
Overall, a very good age gap lesbian romance book with superb tension-building and resolution. 4.5 stars.
ARC provided by the author in exchange for an honest review.
See all my reviews at www.lezreviewbooks.com
This is book 3 of ‘The Village Romance’ series of three romance novels by T.B. Markinson, Clare Lydon and Harper Bliss set around a small town in the Cotswolds, England. Even though the main characters in each novel make an appearance in the others, each story is completely independent of the other two and can be read as standalone. I recommend reading all three books because they are equally enjoyable.
Full disclosure, I beta-read this novel by the author’s request. My input is very minor, focusing solely in the academic process of getting a DPhil/PhD in England. For this reason, I read it twice in the span of a couple of months and enjoyed it both times.
This is an age-gap romance, a type Ms. Bliss specialises in. She really excels at describing the temptation of the forbidden attraction, the inner control that the older character wants to maintain, the boldness of the younger one and the social pressure surrounding them. She did it really well in her book ‘Seasons of love’ and did it again in this one. In ‘A lesson in love’, this conflict is heightened by the fact that the mains are teacher and student, supervisor and supervisee. It’s another layer of forbidden love that brings the tension a few notches up.
Written in first person from the point of view of both main characters, the reader gets a glimpse of their doubts and fears but also their desire and joy. Ms. Bliss builds the tension exquisitely until it could be cut with the proverbial knife. The reader is left hanging for a while until this tension is inevitably shattered into pieces by the force of their emotions. And here the author excels again at showing the passion in the intimate scenes which, in this story, were superb. Ms. Bliss is, hands down, one of the best writers of sex scenes in lesfic.
The book is completed by a group of well-written secondary characters and an interesting debate about whether popular genre books should be considered a lesser form of literature as they normally don’t ponder about the human condition.
Overall, a very good age gap lesbian romance book with superb tension-building and resolution. 4.5 stars.
ARC provided by the author in exchange for an honest review.
See all my reviews at www.lezreviewbooks.com
corrie's review against another edition
5.0
I haven’t read the previous 2 books in the The Village Romance series, but they are all stand alone so it didn’t matter. I really wanted to read Harper Bliss’s A Lesson in Love. Another age-gap romance she does so well. And there’s the teacher-student trope I always find a bonus as well.
I went through the book like poo through a goose, so that means it was really good! If I have to take breaks it usually spells trouble, but not with this one. Helen Swift is one of those deliciously rigid women. Not snarky enough to be an ice queen, but she does keep herself contained as much as possible. The day lovely Victoria (Rory) Carlisle steps into her office all sanity goes out the window.
We are witness to a lovely push and pull between the two ladies with oodles of sexual tension (another Bliss trademark). I love Helen’s internal struggle. Sleeping with a student is so off-limits and yet…
The story is told from both Rory’s and Helen's pov. There is great dialogue and the author knows how to write (and show) inner musings. There is an entertaining cast of secondary characters. An all around fantastic read!
f/f explicit
Themes: Oxford professor, village elite, secret double life, must be a mid-life crisis, porshe, there is a distinct ‘let’s kick Rory out of my house’ theme, 50 is the new 35, score for Harper Bliss.
4.8 Stars
I went through the book like poo through a goose, so that means it was really good! If I have to take breaks it usually spells trouble, but not with this one. Helen Swift is one of those deliciously rigid women. Not snarky enough to be an ice queen, but she does keep herself contained as much as possible. The day lovely Victoria (Rory) Carlisle steps into her office all sanity goes out the window.
We are witness to a lovely push and pull between the two ladies with oodles of sexual tension (another Bliss trademark). I love Helen’s internal struggle. Sleeping with a student is so off-limits and yet…
The story is told from both Rory’s and Helen's pov. There is great dialogue and the author knows how to write (and show) inner musings. There is an entertaining cast of secondary characters. An all around fantastic read!
f/f explicit
Themes: Oxford professor, village elite, secret double life, must be a mid-life crisis, porshe, there is a distinct ‘let’s kick Rory out of my house’ theme, 50 is the new 35, score for Harper Bliss.
4.8 Stars
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