By Natsu Hyuuga and Touko Shino. Released in Japan as “Kusuriya no Hitorigoto” by Hero Bunko. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Kevin Steinbach.

For most of the volume this almost seems like a short story book, with Maomao running around dealing with various things one by one. It’s only when we get near the end that we realize that all the stories we’d seen earlier are all tying together, and all of them are there to show off Maomao and how good she is at what she does, whether that be medicine, or crime-solving, or even just being blunt as hell. She may be annoyed about all of this, but she still does it, mostly for the promise of good food, good medicine, or the chance to avoid people that she’d rather never deal with again, i,e, Lakan, who is slightly less annoying than he normally is in these books, but that’s only because he’s performing the equivalent of a wake. And this all culminates in a final scene that I really don’t want to spoil, which is basically “who gets Maomao?”, and the consequences are larger than you think.

Maomao spends a lot of the book with Yao and En’en by her side, wondering offhandedly if this might be that thing humans call… friendship? She’s just gotten a pile of Go books written by Lakan, presumably as a present, and she’s desperate to sell them, especially when she hears how much people might actually be willing to pay for a book written by a legendary player. But first she has to solve the question of why the consistency of the makeup at a store has changed, the question of which of three identical triplets raped an underage girl, and the question of who stole – or sabotaged – the Empress’ hair stick, perhaps as a threat. All of this culminates in a massive Go tournament, with the rumor being that if anyone can defeat Lakan, he will grant them one wish. The rumor is fake, but that doesn’t stop someone from wondering if this is a way to solve his problems…

After featuring heavily in the first few books, we haven’t seen much of Gyokuyou recently, and this book tries to make up for it. She’s not having a great time right now. Her servants keep leaving (as tends to happen, they mostly leave to get married), and new ones are not coming her way because of her manipulative brother. Fortunately, she has a set of identical triplets (no relation, though they also are caught up in one of the crimes Maomao has to solve) to help her, but her oldest attendant is now over 30 and still not married, which is worrying. She *really* misses Maomao, who is a masterclass at cutting to the heart of everything. Unfortunately, she’s reckoned without the fact that Jinshi is ALSO really missing Maomao, and he’s far more obsessed with her than Gyokuyou is. I will not spoil the final scene, but it’s dynamite, with Maomao for once not being able to do anything as the three most powerful people in the country fight over her.

It does leave the question of where we go from here. The blurb for the 9th novel is suitably vague, so we shall see. Till then, please enjoy another book of this very prickly young woman who absolutely everyone adores.

By Natsu Hyuuga and Touko Shino. Released in Japan as “Kusuriya no Hitorigoto” by Hero Bunko. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Kevin Steinbach.

As I was reading this volume, I was reminded of that meme that went around a while back from the Buzzfeed Unsolved show. “I did meet some of the most insufferable people in the world, BUT they also met me.” Maomao may spend a great deal of time bemoaning the folks she has to deal with, but there’s no denying that she’s even more of a pain in the neck on a regular basis. “Please ignore that man, one of the most powerful in the country, who keeps stalking me and says I’m his daughter. Please ignore that I am good friends with the Empress and Consort #2. Please ignore that I apparently love to ingest poison for fun. I am just a normal woman and want to quietly go about my day… oh look, another murder attempt.” Honestly, some readers might feel less exhausted if this were the adventures of Maomao the cat, back at her apothecary house, avoiding snuggles and yawning, rather than the prickly Maomao the human.

Maomao is forced to take the Civil Service exam once more, and is told that She. Will. Pass. She reluctantly passes, and is now back in the palace, one of five new medical students. Erm, three medical students, as two get culled for essentially being extra baggage. The other two are Yao, who seems like a bullying ojousama at first but turns out to merely be a sheltered and earnest girl, and En’en, her friend and attendant who enjoys watching everything that Yao does. As the three of them learn their trade, we also pick up with events from previous books, as the Shrine Maiden of neighboring Shaoh is now ensconsed in a remote part of the palace, and there seems to be something wrong with her. Is she hiding something? Is she really who she seems? And is she going to be publicly assassinated in a way that might lead to war?

First of all, the best part of this book, by far, are the two new characters. Yao is wonderful, and frankly I was very, very worried that she was going to be killed off for tragedy. (It’s a near thing, and the book lampshades that she’s avoiding the very real consequences of what should have happened to her.) En’en allows us to see a smart, crafty woman who doesn’t have Maomao’s natural bitterness and eccentricity. She’s also in love with Yao, something that is mostly used for comedy here (Jinshi picks her as his attendant as he knows she won’t be there just to hit on him), but which I’m hoping might be taken more seriously later on. And while Apothecary Diaries is not a foodie book like Culinary Chronicles of the Court Flower, a lot of this volume relied on food knowledge and what it can do to the human body. It’ll make you hungry, but good luck eating what’s in here.

All this plus zero sexual assaults! A strong volume, and I hope that Yao and En’en become regulars going forward.

By Natsu Hyuuga and Touko Shino. Released in Japan as “Kusuriya no Hitorigoto” by Hero Bunko. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Kevin Steinbach.

It’s time for another volume of everyone’s favorite mystery series, Murder, She Grumped. We pick up where we left off, with Maomao and Jinshi at the Western Capital (and with Maomao decidedly avoiding an extremely horny Jinshi, who is so horny he’s willing to try it on with his bodyguard), but we soon get a suicide that is not what it seems. After this they finally go home (separately, Jinshi still has to wrap up investigations) and Maomao is tricked/lured by Lahan into dealing with “family business”, something that makes her very unhappy, even as we learn about how glorious potatoes can be. That said, I think the main draw of this book is not going to be Maomao but Lishu, a girl who is trapped in a series whose base qualities are set up to destroy her, and when she gets tangled up in the ongoing plot, she is very nearly destroyed. For once, I found the non-Maomao segments in the book very interesting indeed.

A chunk of this book revolves around the cultural disconnect between East and West, as one of the plot points is that the “love letter” that Lishu had been writing, which gets her in big trouble, is actually her transcribing a translated version of Romeo and Juliet, which has taken the rear palace by storm. The funniest part of the book may be when both Maomao and Jinshi find the plot of the play incredibly annoying, pointing out how miscommunication is not tragic, just frustrating, and all the sobbing young women who say they just don’t get it. Maomao is her usual excellent self here, pretending to have an uncaring, logical mind while constantly helping everyone around her. She’s still not back at the palace yet… but honestly, Jinshi visits her constantly, so that’s fine.

And poor Lishu. The concept of the “weak” Consort being bullied by everyone around her, including her own servants, is not unique to this series, but that doesn’t mean that the emotional impact is lessened. Lishu goes through a lot in this book and the previous one, from almost getting killed by a lion, to being accused of infidelity to the Emperor and locked in a tower, to (perhaps worst of all, and the lead-up even gets an illustration) having Maomao need to “verify” for the official record that she’s still a virgin. She’s not a candidate for the Emperor’s bed, and honestly, I don’t think she’s the sort to eventually win over those around her by being sweet and kind… she’s simply too ineffectual even to achieve that. Her ending here is probably the best one we can possibly expect, and I hope that she has a far better life going forward than she’s had to date.

That said, we do now have a vacant Consort position. While I briefly considered the idea of it going to Maomao, and howled with laughter (till I realized she would probably castrate me if she heard me), I suspect it will be part of the plot of future books. The part that is not about Maomao investigating crimes like the most sullen Angela Lansbury ever.