Full Review on NetGalley
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Review courtesy of Dark Faerie Tales

Quick & Dirty: Erotic novel featuring all kids of sexual situations, not for the faint of heart.

Opening Sentence: His mouth pressed against mine, his tongue squeezing between my lips.

The Review:

Victoria is 16 year girl caught with the stable boy in Regency era England. Her father decides to send her to a finishing school in Vienna. I am not sure if he meant to send her to that school, but she ends up in Venus finishing school for girls. Almost immediately it becomes clear what they are learning at this school.

Victoria is taught the art of pleasing herself, performing fellatio, and basically almost every act of sex you can think of. She takes to these lessons eagerly. Often using her newfound knowledge on the other girls attending the school, and sometimes on the young men kept on hand. After a year or so passes she returns home one summer to find that her father is in dire straits and ultimately kills himself and she tries desperately to save what she can of the estate.

Let me start off with the good, if you like erotic sex books than this book is for you. It has something literally for everyone, lesbian, gay, straight, and bi. I mean that seriously. The writing is excellent and the book is vivid. For this being the first erotic novel by the author I felt she did a pretty great job.

However, I had some issues; this book isn’t particularly for the faint of heart. The first thing that bothered me was Victoria’s age, of course taking the timeframe into consideration, I know that I am looking at that with a modern eye. She and other teenagers are in graphic sexual situations the entire book. There are depictions of incest, rape and numerous other disturbing incidents within the book. I know I said it was a good book, and it is a good erotic novel, given the context of the book my feelings are probably just my feelings. I was conflicted about the book, on one hand I enjoyed it, and on the other hand those incidents and her age disturbed me quite a bit.

You may feel that I didn’t properly address the story except there really isn’t much of a story. It is very much an erotic novel. The plot really is about a young girl’s sexual awakening and her path to running her own establishment.

Notable Scenes:

“So I remained inside the stuffy house with no one to converse with or entertain me.”

“Most evenings we entertained one or another of Bea’s patrons and their friends or guests.”

“Natalie waved from the doorway as I began my journey to Vienna and a new life.”

FTC Advisory: Sourcebooks/Xcite provided me with a copy of The Education of Victoria. No goody bags, sponsorships, “material connections,” or bribes were exchanged for my review. ( )