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.

Even a Replica Can Fall in Love, Vol. 3

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By Harunadon and raemz. Released in Japan as “Replica Datte, Koi o Suru” by Dengeki Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Andrew Cunningham.

When I’d finished the first volume of this series, I felt it was very much a done-in-one, and felt a little wary that there was more of it. Then came the second volume, which had a couple of nasty cliffhangers at the end that made the reader desperately want to pick up the third, so I figured the author got a hold of where it was going. Having now researched it a bit, it appears that there are four main volumes and an “after story” volume. Which is good, because egads, that ending of the third book. But it’s also a bit of a shame, because if the third book had indeed been the last, the ending we get would have been an absolute banger, making desperate readers write into Dengeki Bunko saying that there’s a missing page and to find out how it actually ended. But, that’s not what’s happening. And honestly, that’s probably good, as there is still stuff to deal with.

As the book opens, Sunao has been doing the “going to school” thing, and is interacting with her classmates almost despite herself, as they prepare for the class trip… which is still going forward, despite the Student Council president vanishing in thin air in front of everyone and then ending up dead a week earlier. As for Nao, she is back at the house, unable to do anything except sit there every day and mourn Ryou. Fortunately, Aki and Ricchan stage an intervention and remind her that she is more than just a replica… or is she? As the book goes on and Sunao goes off on the class trip, Nao and Aki go on their own trip to the town where Ryou lived with her grandparents… and end up staying with said grandparents, where they get told something very shocking but also very obvious if you know what replicas REALLY are.

As with the first two books, it’s very difficult to talk about what’s really great about it without spoiling the whole thing, but let me once again take a whack. This volume gives us the biggest dose yet of Sunao, and we really get to see what’s making her tick and what she’s trying to do here. Her relationship with Nao is slowly killing her, and while I don’t mean that literally there are a few literary references in this book that allude to a story where it is taken literally. Sunao is not in a good place now, nor is Sanada, who is also back living everyday life while his replica stays home. Do we get to meet another replica in this book? No, bjut we meet someone who once had one, and that proves to be the key, as it shows not that Sunao and Sanada having replicas isn’t as unique as they think, but that the way they have replicas is uniquely wrong.

All this leads to one belter of a cliffhanger… sort of? Anyone who has read the series at all knows what Nao will say, but it’s the after that’s the important thing, so let’s see what happens next with Book 4. The writing remains excellent, and his is genuinely Harunadon’s best series in English right now.

The Villainess Is Dead! Long Live the Empress! Redoing the Story After a Poisonous End, Vol. 2

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By Iota Aiue and Tsukasa Kuga. Released in Japan as “Shokeisareta Akujo wa, Taikoku de Kouhi no Za wo Tsukamu” by DRE Novels. Released in North America by J-Novel Heart. Translated by Mac B. Gill.

There was a lot of this that I liked, but the middle part made me want to start flicking throughn it, and it’s mostly due to the big villain. Look, as evil beyond evil villains go, this guy is pretty good at avoiding the absolute worst. He doesn’t have a bowl haircut or an arrogant laugh. He’s not trying to sexually assault any of our cast. For light novel standards, he’s subtle. Likewise, his punishment is very apropos for this kinda on the cynical end of the spectrum world. But man, he’s a bummer. Whipping his daughter, murdering thousands with poison dresses and flowers, also providing the poison used to kill our main villainess, drove a family to suicide and enslavement… there’s a very definite reason why the emperor is giving Westalia a chance, even though it looks like he’s not. There’s a very real chance that if Elizabeth wins the competition, the country is doomed. Bit of a bummer, honestly.

Now that Westalia and Elizabeth have tied in the Empress competition, there has to be a run off. The Emperor decides that the two of them will gather artificial flowers. They get a budget and a warehouse, which they have to fill with them. Given Elizabeth’s family is in textiles, this is obviously very biased towards her, but Westalia suspects the Emperor has a bigger reason for doing this – he wants the Reyn family’s secrets uncovered and to see them destroyed – without Tiberio, Elizabeth’s father and head of the family, getting out of it and pinning it on someone else, as he’s done before. What’s worse, Elizabeth seems to be falling ill with symptoms that seem very similar to poisoning, and Paige recognizes Tiberio as the man who destroyed her family and sold her into slavery. Westalia is really, really starting this event in a hole.

There are, of course, reasons I did enjoy this book. Every time Westalia loses her temper and gets mad is not only kind of scary but actually comedy gold, especially when she gets the official scribe to implicate the villain but fails to realize that the scribe will also be describing her own acts as well. More importantly, though, this is a book about people who have been abandoned and broken by loved ones learning how to reach out and accept help. Westalia is trying to do things on her own, and it doesn’t work, she needs to work with and trust everyone, even after dying once. Paige has to get past her rage and despair about the death of her parents and learn how to work trough this positively. And Elizabeth has to realize that fighting back against her father is better than ruling as a puppet while she slowly dies. (That last one is harder than it seems, defying your abuser requires a lot of gumption.)

Fortunately, everyone lives happily ever after and recovers from being poisoned, except that one guy. And so the series is over, and it’s a good end. That said, only get this if you get all the villainess books.