By Harunadon and Eda. Released in Japan as “Koisuru Majo wa Elite Kishi ni Horegusuri o Nomasete Shimaimashita: Itsuwari kara Hajimaru Watashi no Dekiai Seikatsu” by DRE Novels. Released in North America by J-Novel Heart. Translated by Arthur Miura.

I have to give this book credit. I finished it and it kept me reasonably entertained, despite doing literally everything wrong that it could possibly do. First off, it was going to be hard to begin with. The first volume was very much finished. Done in one. So a second (and, it would seem, a third) seems like overkill. But, I get it, new novel imprint, please produce content. Secondly, the title, which is entirely about the events in the first book, makes about as much sense as The Ideal Sponger Life when it comes to future books, right? Wrong. What if we used ANOTHER love potion! And of yes, the forgotten, slightly evil childhood friend is here too. Plus, Charlotte is back. Remember the girl who says loins constantly? She’s still saying that, more than ever, and she’s also playing detective and being watched over by a guy who I know is being shipped with her but I’m ignoring that. Despite ALL this: not too bad.

Cecily and Zeke are now in love, and she’s met his family and gotten their approval to get married. Her mother also approves, though she seems to be constantly smirking about something. Now she just has to get her father’s approval, which is likely to be a problem, as he’s one of THOSE fathers. This also means that she has to go back to her witch village, which she supposedly can’t return to for another year. But her mom says it will be OK, so…? To add to all this, Charlotte decides she’s going to come with her, mostly as she feels lonely without Cecily. This means Alphonse, her guard, and Maria, her maid, also tag along. This trip has gotten much bigger. Still, they all arrives, and things seem to be going well… till her childhood friend Cain arrives. Turns out he’s also a witch… and he’s just dosed her with a love potion!

Despite all my whining above, most of this is handled pretty well. Except the loins thing. Still annoyed about that. But Cain is an antagonist without slipping over into pure evil, and his motivations are mostly “a childhood thing I dreamed of for ten years has been smashed to bits by reality”. The love potion may have Cecily says she loves Cain and want to spend all her time with him, but that’s ALL that it does, and when Cain, out of frustration, DOES try to kiss her, she’s able to resist it. As with the first book, true love wins out over dosed love. Cecily and Zeke are, frankly, a bit too wet and soppy for my taste, but that is the genre that I am reading, so I suppose I can forgive it. And while Charlotte may act more like a 7-year-old than a 14-year-old, her “detective” bits were pretty cute and funny.

There’s a third book on the way, which I assume will have the second wedding, back in the capital. I do wonder how they’ll work a love potion into it, though… In any case, this was decent, despite (waves hand aimlessly) everything about it.

By Harunadon and Eda. Released in Japan as “Koisuru Majo wa Elite Kishi ni Horegusuri o Nomasete Shimaimashita: Itsuwari kara Hajimaru Watashi no Dekiai Seikatsu” by DRE Novels. Released in North America by J-Novel Heart. Translated by Arthur Miura.

I don’t expect every book I read to be good, and I know that a lot of them can pretty much be summed up as “this is an adequate representation of its genre”, but I usually like something that I can grab on to, if only for the reviews. Something that’s a bit odd, or weird, or different. No, I’m not going to talk about THAT word yet, more on that later. Instead I will note that this rather normal, generic romance novel has an odd quirky humor at times that sort of leaps out and grabs you. It’s as if the author is coloring in the lines in a book, but can’t resist all of a sudden just drawing halfway across the next page. And the scene in this book, about halfway through, when Cecily gets eaten by a wyvern, was exactly that. I laughed till I cried. The only drawback is it wasn’t illustrated.

Cecily, who grew up loving fairy tales about princess tricked by evil witches, is horrified when she comes of age to discover that she is, in fact, one of those witches. Now she has to live on her own for two years, as is tradition, and peddle her craft. The trouble is that Cecily is horribly introverted, so for the most part lives in a little house in the big woods. One day, her potion that changes her eye color wears off right as she’s wrongfully accused of theft, and a nasty incident is about to happen. Fortunately, she’s saved by a handsome knight. Unfortunately, she misunderstands something when overhearing him later and gets mad, deciding that (just as her mother did to her father), she’s going to brew a love potion and have the knight drink it! Surely nothing can go wrong.

So, let’s talk about the Princess. To be fair to the translator, I’m fairly certain there was no good way to translate this and not have it have the exact impact it has, that vague frisson of “a 14-year-old princess should not be using that word”. That said love potions aside, this is a sweet and fluffy romance novel for the most part, so when you recommend it you’re really going to have to say “also her best friend the princess says “loins” constantly”. Or else you’ll get glared at. The loins also fall into that quirky humor I mentioned above. I’m glad it’s there, as the two leads are not anything to write home about. I admit Cecily’s type, the nervous, self-hating introvert, is never my favorite protagonist to read, so that doesn’t really help. That said, I did enjoy the quirks, and, as you might have guessed, no one really does anything against their will here.

Feels complete to me, but a second book is on the way. If you enjoy collecting J-Novel Heart titles or just want to see a young woman get swallowed by a lizard, this is a good book to check out.