My Fiancé Cheated, But a New Love Rings!, Vol. 2

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By Ehito and Koyukomu. Released in Japan as “Konyakusha no Uwaki Genba wo Michatta no de Hajimari no Kane ga Narimashita” by Mag Garden Novels. Released in North America by J-Novel Heart. Translated by Chris Craigo.

Lately I’ve really been getting blindsided by picking up Volume 2 of a series and discovering that the series actually ends there. It makes sense. Especially in the genre of books we see with J-Novel Heart, long-runners are not the norm. Romance novels don’t really need three-volume tournament arcs to drag things out, and those that do run forever, like Bakarina, tend to be popular for reasons other than who Katarina will end up with. On the down side, this means we are essentially done with Sophie’s old kingdom, and we do not return to see how they manage to fix things now that Sophie has abandoned it. On the bright side, this means we get a lot more of the two eccentric characters we met last time, and find out exactly what their deal is. As you can imagine, things are very fraught and complicated. Fortunately, Sophie is finding that she’s not only a magic powerhouse but also enjoys sociopathy. In small doses.

Yes, that’s right, as the cover shows, Sophie picks up a new animal familiar, and they’re huge. As Sophie, Livio, Vyce and Lunetta make their way out of the town that had the monster attack, they come across an injured monster bear, and Lunetta asks Sophie to heal it to see exactly what her magic potential is. When Sophie manages to do so, it turns out that the injured bear is really an injured god, and it’s now content to get named by Sophie and become her cuddly but powerful bear familiar. Sophie and Livio want to go to the country of not-Japan, off to the East, so that they can eat delicious food. But Vyce wants them to stop by his kingdom first, partly as Sophie is making her first friend with Lunetta, who is making her first friend with Sophie, but also has he wants to recruit them. Unfortunately, we may have to deal with Lunetta’s tragic past first.

This is not quite as good as the first book, mostly as it does not have the sheer lunacy of Sophie’s family and royalty back in her old kingdom. Vyce and Lunetta are very likeable characters, but they’re also very familiar types, so there’s far fewer surprises. Even Lunetta’s tragic past, which turns out to go back many, many generations, is less about how awful it was and more about allowing Lunetta to show real emotions and let off some steam so that she can stop being an emotionless magic nerd drone. The main reason to enjoy this series, like the previous book, is the absolute syrupy sweetness of Sophie and Livio’s love affair, which is just sugary as hell, deliberately so, and also to see Sophie gradually start to accept that she does in fact have positive qualities and is not in fact a terrible person, which, given she’s about three weeks away from a lifetime of abuse, is slow going.

Now, the webnovel is ongoing, so certainly more volumes could be in the cards. But I dunno, this feels like the end of the published version. For fans of really schmoopy couples and bear gods who are not named Shardik.

The Trials and Tribulations of My Next Life As a Noblewoman: Ruination and Resolve, Part 2

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By Kamihara and Shiro46. Released in Japan as “Tensei Reijo to Sūki na Jinsei o” by Hayakawa Shobo. Released in North America by J-Novel Heart. Translated by Hengtee Lim.

This is the second half of what was originally a one-part 500+-page monster, and as such it definitely feels different than the first half. Which makes sense. If you look at the subtitle of this book, the first half was all about the ruination, so it makes sense that the second half would be about the resolve. As such, there’s not QUITE as many tribulations in this book compared to the first two? At least in terms of piles of death and threats of death. That said, Karen certainly does suffer a large number of shocks here. She allies with Reinald, which is the best thing to do to protect Conrad and those she lost, as well as those she still has, but it does make a whole lot of people think of her as… something impolite. What’s more, after the shock of her parentage that started the series, we now get more revelations about it, which may become a bigger problem down the road, as everyone’s packing up and moving.

That’s right, they’re doing new covers for us! It looks pretty great. That said, Reinald’s sister sort of comes and goes like a storm, and is not the actual focus of this book, which remains squarely on Karen. The kingdom itself is done for, and it turns out that this was actually very deliberate on Reinald’s part – he’s the son of the Emperor of Arrendle, who declares that only those who do amazing things can succeed him, and “overthrow a country next door for me” is one of those things. Karen is given some new land to oversee, mostly as the fall of Conrad was engineered very carefully by the Empire and the country on the other side – but things are rough, and Wendel is getting bullied at school. As such, a large chunk of the family makes the decision to move to the Empire.

As ever, Karen is the highlight of the book, and I get the feeling that a lot of people who like her try to compete to see who can make her show an actual emotion – though that may be unreliable narration on her part, as we see at points that her face is showing emotions that she is deliberately trying not to tell the reader about. It was also nice to see Ern again, who apparently went to the Empire and became a mad scientist – not as eccentric as Six, but still plenty eccentric, to be honest. She’s on the cover of Book 3-1, so I’m sure we’ll see more of her. On the other hand, I have to feel bad for Gerda. She loved her sister so much she married a man she didn’t want to to save Karen’s reputation, and now here she is, with a husband she loved dead, and Karen clearly knew it was coming. It’s a quiet note of tragedy in the books, where a lot of times things happen that are sad but no one can quite do anything about. I suspect she and Karen will never meet again.

This ends the second book proper, so you can be assured the main story ends with a very nasty cliffhanger, as Karen is seemingly caught in a magical trap. For those who love seeing bad things happen to good people when it’s well written.

Lady Bumpkin and Her Lord Villain, Vol. 4

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By Ageha Sakura and Kurodeko. Released in Japan as “Imokusa Reijou desu ga Akuyaku Reisoku wo Tasuketara Kiniiraremashita” by Overlap Novels f. Released in North America by J-Novel Heart. Translated by Vasileios Mousikidis.

In the first three volumes we saw how Agnes, as well as many, many other noble girls, were abused by their families physically, mentally and emotionally, causing them to either be broken shells or else turn towards evil. I had wondered if this was the norm for the nobility in this series. Well, in this new volume we meet a whole passel of noble girls who don’t appear to have suffered any of this. Unfortunately, they’re all either examples of the sort of vacillating, both sides have a point person who only wants to end up on the winning side, or they’re the sneering catty bitches sort who always tend to be in these sort of books, usually shoving the heroine to the ground and doing that laugh with the hand covering the mouth. I really want a nice girl with a loving family who ends up being fine. Just one?

Having settled in as Sutrena’s top lady, Agnes feels she now has to try to go back and achieve what she could not do in the first place: become a high society noble in the capital. She knows that negotiating tea parties and gossiping is how a true lady wields her power, and the fact that she hates that sort of thing is neither here nor there. Fortunately, the Queen sends her an invite to a tea party she’s having to try to make nice with the noblewomen. Unfortunately, the whole thing shows off that the Queen has very little support – in fact, it may just be Agnes. As if that weren’t bad enough, a reporter publishes an article saying Agnes is cheating on Nazel with his brother, someone keeps trying to kidnap Ralph, Princess Mia’s child who is now living as the son of a count, and Agnes finds herself in the midst of a conspiracy. Again.

I have to say, sometimes these books set in the standard “nobility and commoners” universe make me uncomfortable. The reporter who libels Agnes is a commoner with a tragic backstory, which involves abuse and abandonment. She is also a thoroughly unpleasant person, and by the end of the book she is thrown in prison, with more serious punishment implied. Meanwhile, there are also several nobles in this who are also thoroughly unpleasant people whose actions lead to terrible things, and they are… either sent to a convent or exiled. Indeed, the fate of the villain of the book is to end up on the same island as Princess Mia, and he regards it as something of a happy ending. No one really notices this double standard, mostly as the entire cast, almost, consists of nobles or those who work closely with nobles. Sigh. Anyway, aside from that, Agnes sure gets put into peril a lot in this book, possibly to disguise the fact that her magic can now do almost anything.

The end of the book comes with something that’s not too much of a surprise given how often Nazel takes his new bride up to bed. Maybe we can finally justify that chibi on the covers. Recommended for those who don’t think too hard about class struggle in villainess books.