A young woman cries herself to sleep after the death of her favorite character, Alejandro, in her favorite book. When she wakes up, she discovers that she's a maid in Alejandro's household. Alejandro is 13 but looks much younger due to a curse that's eating away at him. The heroine, as 16-year-old Ibelina, is determined to protect him and help him achieve a happier ending than the original book gave him.
Season 1 covers Alejandro's life from, I think, age 13 to maybe 17 or 18. Ibelina is utterly devoted to him, and since she's the first person to treat Alejandro kindly, he ends up falling in love with her. Meanwhile, Ibelina acts more like an older sister type, although this becomes awkward after Alejandro recovers from the curse and has a growth spurt that makes him look like an adult at age 15.
I originally read this a few months ago but wasn't reviewing web comics at that point. I enjoyed it just as much on a reread, but it definitely has enormous problematic aspects. The age difference between Ibelina and Alejandro might not be huge, but it feels huge when he starts the story off looking so much younger than she does. Then he basically imprints on her, similar to how he would have imprinted on the book's original heroine if Ibelina hadn't appeared and begun changing things, simply because Ibelina is the first person to ever be nice and loving towards him. Ibelina's own feelings don't turn romantic until Alejandro is a bit older, but there are "appreciating Alejandro's abs" moments as early as when he's 15, so yeah...
Still, I really enjoyed Ibelina's determination to win Alejandro over and give him a better childhood than she knew he'd had during the original book. Unlike a lot of webcomics I've read recently, the pacing was really good - actual forward movement on the plot, new developments in the storyline, etc. The character artwork is excellent, although, like I said, Alejandro's physical appearance never seemed to match his actual age. Backgrounds were a bit iffier - at times it was very clear that they were CG, because elements looked off or just a bit too sharp compared to the character art (most noticeable when it came to any scenes with carriages).
The story had some very melodramatic moments, to the point that it occasionally felt like a soap opera. Most of it made for fun reading, although I winced at the attempt to add a love triangle. One of the other servants in Alejandro's household, a young man a couple years older than her, developed an instant crush on her, and instead of being an intriguing development it was just painful. Lorenzo would have been a better fit for Ibelina in a lot of ways (actually old enough, for one thing), but her focus was 100% on supporting and caring for Alejandro, so it felt pointless. And, unfortunately, it gave Alejandro an opening to act like a jealous and spoiled young noble. Thankfully Ibelina not only called him out on that, he also tried to modify his behavior in the future. I suspect the Lorenzo storyline isn't over, so I'm crossing my fingers that it doesn't explode into something truly awful in Season 2.
I'm interested to see where this goes in Season 2. Has Ibelina changed the story enough, or will she just end up taking the original heroine's place in some ways and end up accidentally leading Alejandro to his doom? Considering how devoted she is to his happiness, it's doubtful that Alejandro's path will be quite the same, but there's still plenty of room for things to go wrong in ways Ibelina doesn't expect.