A Lesson in Love
- ravishhertales
- Aug 12, 2020
- 3 min read
Updated: Jul 9
Review:
Harper Bliss is known for her emotionally charged, age-gap sapphic romances, and A Lesson in Love is another entry in her signature style. This novel blends forbidden romance, academic tension, and slow-burning chemistry into a story that’s both enjoyable and frustrating in equal measure.
Professor vs. Student – A Classic Power Dynamic
Helen Swift is a 49-year-old Oxford professor who’s intellectually brilliant but emotionally guarded. She’s at a point in her life where she’s questioning her career and finding more joy in writing cozy mysteries under a secret pen name than in academia.
Enter Victoria ‘Rory’ Carlisle, her new DPhil (PhD) supervisee—young, posh, confident, and immediately smitten with Helen. Rory doesn’t shy away from expressing her attraction, while Helen fights to keep things professional. After all, a professor dating a student (even an adult, non-undergraduate one) is a serious ethical dilemma.
As Rory persists and Helen starts to let her walls down, we see a push-and-pull dynamic that’s filled with tension. Helen is terrified of crossing the line, while Rory is determined to break through her resistance.
A Tale of Two Paces
The novel has a pacing problem, especially in the first quarter. For nearly the first 25% of the book, Helen seems far more invested in the opinions of her cozy mystery readers than in Rory. Their interactions are minimal, and there’s little chemistry built between them early on. This makes it hard to buy into their eventual romance.
Then, suddenly, things shift gears. Once the romance actually starts, the book moves at breakneck speed—from careful glances to full-blown intimacy in what feels like a heartbeat. While Bliss writes fantastic, steamy love scenes, the emotional buildup doesn’t feel entirely earned.
Strong Themes and Well-Written Tension
What Bliss does handle well is the moral dilemma. The professor-student dynamic is problematic, even though Rory is a full-fledged adult. Helen’s internal struggle is written convincingly, and the ethical concerns don’t get brushed aside too quickly. Their relationship has real obstacles, and while Rory’s persistence is endearing, it also raises questions about power imbalances and professional boundaries.
Bliss also explores the literary snobbery debate—should popular genre fiction (like Helen’s cozy mysteries) be considered "lesser" than highbrow literature? This subplot adds depth to Helen’s character, as she grapples with the stigma of being a "serious academic" who secretly writes commercial fiction.
A Bit Unbalanced in Character Development
Helen is a wonderfully flawed and complex character—smart, introverted, and torn between her desires and professional ethics. But Rory, despite her charm, feels underdeveloped. We don’t get enough insight into her motivations beyond her attraction to Helen. What drives Rory outside of her pursuit of Helen? We don’t get to see enough of that.
The secondary characters add some fun and warmth to the book, but they don’t get much depth. They serve as sounding boards rather than fully fleshed-out individuals.
Final Thoughts
A Lesson in Love is a decent but flawed entry in Harper Bliss’s bibliography. It delivers on the forbidden attraction and age-gap romance themes, but the chemistry between the leads takes too long to develop and then speeds up too quickly. Bliss’s signature steamy scenes are here, but without a stronger emotional foundation, the romance feels a bit hollow.
If you’re a die-hard Harper Bliss fan or love professor-student romances, this might be worth a read. But if you’re looking for a deeply satisfying slow burn with well-paced character development, this one might leave you wanting more.
₹450
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