In what will become my basic refrain for my basic review of this series, I will reiterate: mysteries that involve magic do not work. They just don’t. You can have your reveals, sure, and there are some decent ones here, but you can’t make a satisfying mystery from it.
Ergo, you’ll be better off treating this as more of a suspense story than a whodunnit. I mean, yes, it has basic mystery things in it, but when magical apparatus and whatnot are just being pulled out of nowhere, whole cloth, it’s harder to get invested.
Which is too bad, because there are some decent ideas swirling around this that could be a lot more interesting with more focus on them. Salome, for example, is dealing with a curse that makes her candidacy and life more perilous than it first appears.
It ties back into the murder investigation, but parts of this feel disconnected or like they’re going in too many directions at once. I just feel like this is a jumble rather than a grand tapestry being woven.
And there’s the whole possibility of mind control coming into the whole thing, which is again fine if you want a fantasy mystery (and it does add a little suspense), less so if you want something that hums along in reality. I’m not expecting Brother Cadfael here, but I like clearly defined rules.
Otherwise, it has some decent jokes and all that. Erald and Chloe make a good double-act and I like that Chloe’s reason for finding him intriguing is that she can’t read his expressions. I wish the story played up her abilities and her avarice more - her trying to strong arm more money is a nice touch.
It just feels very surface-level at times. Even somebody like Salome, who we spend a goodly amount of time with this volume, doesn’t feel like a real character. There’s a detachment from the story that I don’t feel in similar books.
It’s probably just because of how my tastes run, but I also really liked the addition of Lady Zoe’s knight, who happens to be a short-haired female. I am not expecting anything here, but there’s a yuri in that premise.
There are several little moments that do make this worth continuing with. When the candidates are helping at a bazaar, there’s a pretty clever plot over helping the poor and trying to recycle plates that was well thought out.
And I do want to read the next volume, just because I saw something in passing that made me suspicious and, gripes about the story aside, part of me wants to be proven right no matter the instance.
3 stars - this is a good idea, but also kind of ramshackle. There’s probably a better way to present this, but I’m not sure what it is, and it’s admittedly okay even with its faults.
Natsu Hyuuga is a talented storyteller, plumbing the nuances of personalities, motivations, and relationships. The artist does exquisite work. Part of the fun is just enjoying the art.