School of Hard Knocks by AP Miller

If there was ever a story of the “sins of the father,” this book fits the bill. The overall story and the main characters were very well written. I’m a fan of BDSM stories, and I thought that this one was pretty well done. It actually reminded me a lot of Anne Rice’s Sleeping Beauty trilogy. The sex was very hot and believable.


Some of the issues that I had were that we are started with a very strong opening in the prologue that establishes the Headmistress character and sets up the path you think the story is going to follow. But the following chapters don’t establish Elizabeth’s character that well and seem more interested in getting to the sex than anything else. For example the beginning of chapter five contains a VERY hot scene, but it had nothing to do with the story line or main characters. The constant reference to the psychology of the story as drove me nuts. Yes, there are psychological aspects to BDSM, I get it. I didn’t need them to continue to mention this throughout the entire story.


There were also places that seemed to go into unnecessary details. There was no reason to go into the actual lessons that Mr. Jaspers taught in Chemistry class. It took me out of the story and I almost stopped reading at that point, I had to take Chemistry in school and really didn’t want to know anything more about it.


It wasn’t until Chapter seven that I thought the story finally got back on track. It was at this point that I was enmeshed in the story and felt invested in the characters. The scenes between the characters were even hotter because I finally felt connected to Elizabeth and Tiffany. I wanted to know what was going to happen next. The party they went to with their gentlemen escorts was actually one of my favorites, the girl’s interactions with each other were great and seeing how they reacted in real world situations was very impressive.


Overall, I really enjoyed reading it. Although it had a slow start, if you stick with it long enough you finally get to the meat of the story. In the end I loved the combination of submission and strength that was shown in all of the characters. The lessons learned, the character development and the eventually revenge was all very satisfying.


 
Review Written by our newest review team member: Susie White