It took me some time to get to Harsh Lessons, but once I started reading, I couldn’t put this down. The second book in the Leeth Dossier series, Harsh Lessons has our heroine (was Sara, now Leeth) move out of the Institute for Paranormal Dysfunction to a covert government agency where she has to learn to fit in. Unfortunately, there’s still something hunting her and this untrained huntress might just become the hunted.

Disclaimer before we start: I met this author on a writing site a few years back, which is how I found out about Leeth, but I bought this book of my own volition because I wanted to find out what happened to Leeth. Naturally, all opinions are my own (given that I paid for this and am writing this voluntarily).

The first book took place in the Institute but in this second book, Leeth’s world is expanded. Unfortunately, leaving the Institute didn’t leave her abuser/guardian behind and this time, the powers-that-be are in agreement that he can continue turning her into the perfect “Huntress”. It’s a lot of emotional, mental, and even sexual abuse and it makes for very heavy reading, especially in the first part.

But, I found that this book also had lighter moments, especially in the latter half of the book where Leeth has to go to the real world. I thought that her character grew the most here and it was honestly very touching to see her among peers her age. The second half was my favourite part of the book because it had a great balance of normal and darkness.

Since the second half of the book was my favourite, I did wish that the first half of the book was shortened. I see that it’s necessary to set up the norms of the agency, but Leeth never really connected with the agents and it was a bit sad to see how everything was continually set against her. In fact, towards the midway point, the book got so dark I considered pausing for a while. The turn to a ‘normal life’ was unexpected but it was what made me read on.

Overall, this was a dark and disturbing read. The post-apocalyptic world is chilling (and well-built! I really liked learning more about it) and it breaks my heart to see the ways that so many adults around Leeth continually fail her. But I’m heartened at the ending and I’m looking forward to reading the third book.

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