By Makino Maebaru and Hachi Uehara. Released in Japan as “Konyaku Hakida, Hatsujō Seijo” by PASH! Books. Released in North America by Cross Infinite World. Translated by Kashi Kamitoma.

I’ve said this before about books based on webnovels, but it applies especially to this volume: this book is simply too long. The digital edition is 338 pages, which is about 130 too many. Especially as a lot of this is merely going over the same ground. Monica blesses things and does spells, and they arouse her, though as the book goes on it’s becoming apparent that this is starting to only happen around Richard. She continues to assume Richard has no romantic or sexual interest in her, despite his saying “I adore you” to her face (admittedly, he is wearing a magical chastity belt for most of this volume, so it’s not entirely her being dense… just mostly). And since this volume takes place in Monica’s old country, there is a whole lot of slut shaming, evil princes, evil clergy, and the usual light novel cliches. That said, this is perfectly readable, and Monica and Richard are good characters. It’s just long.

Monica and Richard are back in Kophe. for Monica it’s a chance to help her old nation, under horrific monster attacks, and hopefully try to change their minds about the way they use priestesses. for Richard it’s mostly about crushing all those who dared to attempt to crush Monica, and he has absolutely zero desire to help anyone in the country at all… except Monica wants him to, so FINE. Unfortunately, various things get in the way. As noted, the Church want to destroy and murder Monica, and they also want to replace the King, who is not doing what they want, with the more malleable prince. The prince is still furious with Monica. And there’s a merchant, seen in the first volume but an actual character here, whose job is to make Monica doubt her relationship with Richard and remind her that he’s a prince and she’s a commoner. Can they work things out? And can Monica save the world without… well, embarrassing arousal?

My favorite part of the book may have been one of the minor villains, the unfortunately named Keunt (I wonder if the ‘e’ was added by editorial fiat), who is an aide to the evil prince and has a habit of composing the biography that will inevitably be written about him in his head. This is wonderful, especially because he is pathetic in the extreme, and any biography he gets is going to be written in crayon on a placemat. The other interesting thing in this book is Richard, who turns out to be a bit more sociopathic than some readers may be comfortable with. It’s clear that if it weren’t for his love of the pure and virtuous Monica, this book would be awash in blood. He’s also wearing, as I noted, a magical chastity belt because he wants Monica to see him as a friend rather than someone who lusts after her like all the others. This despite the fact that he really, really does lust after her. (Do they have their first time at the end of the boo? It’s ambiguous.)

I had thought this was the final volume, but the author implies there’s a third, and certainly they’re not married yet. For fans of the author.

By Makino Maebaru and Hachi Uehara. Released in Japan as “Konyaku Hakida, Hatsujō Seijo” by PASH! Books. Released in North America by Cross Infinite World. Translated by Kashi Kamitoma.

The danger of getting a killer premise is that you have to go through with the killer premise even though it will require reassuring some readers that it’s not THAT killer. So, let me reassure you, the reader. This book is a shoujo romance, basically Cinderella, and the lead heroine remains chaste throughout. That said… the premise of the book means that this heroine is frequently horny a great deal of the time, and sometimes imagines naughty fantasies. (Her powers also arouse the men she uses them on, and be warned there are a couple of sexual assault scenes in this book.) The author is not just interested in writing about Monica being aroused, though there are a few funny moment there. The book is more about why slut-shaming is terrible, and how treating women with respect and dignity will be its own reward. Plus, y’know, being rescued from an abysmal fate by a hot redheaded prince. Still a Cinderella story.

Monica, the priestess of the title, is not reincarnated from Japan or suddenly in her favorite game, but boy, the start of this book seems familiar anyway. Her fiance the prince publicly breaks up with her, and calls her a harlot. Her powers, which are fantastic when battling monsters and can heal nasty injuries, have an unfortunate side effect – she, and the person or persons she is healing, get aroused. And the more she uses them, the more aroused she gets. At first exiled, and then finding out that even worse is planned, she is fortunately rescued by Richard, a knight in the city she previously worked out of, and (as it turns out) the prince of the Empire next door. His country has a problem – the King is impotent, and this is leading to political difficulties. Can her powers help things along?

As you might imagine, this is mostly better than it sounds. I appreciated that the king’s impotence is NOT magically healed by her arousal powers, but instead requires months of repairing the infighting in the kingdom and restoring the self-confidence of the Queen to the point where they are no longer battling hideous stress every day. Monica herself has an odd combination of self-confidence and self-hatred – when it comes to her powers, or, by extension, her expertise in battle (being a monster-battling priestess, she’s basically had to be a general much of the time), she’s got it all down pat. But her upbringing and the attitudes of the kingdom she lived in prior to this have left her believing herself to be a worthless commoner, unfit for someone like Richard. Who, by the way, she is convinced is asexual, possibly the funniest part of this book.

The book enjoys its tropes – there’s a literal sadist maid here, as well as a knight who’s a bit TOO devoted to his master. But it uses a light touch to ensure that we’re not too put off by it. Basically, the author wanted to write a book that runs on horny but is still a pure shoujo romance, and mostly succeeds. I’ll read Volume 2, which I hope is not as long as Volume 1 was.