I made the mistake of not reviewing this right after I finished it, so my memories are fuzzy. I figured it was best to finally write something up before starting the third book and further muddying my memories.

A couple years have passed since the beginning of the first book, and Iris is doing well. Her company is thriving, and she's doing a brilliant job governing Armelia. She's gone back to the palace for the first time since her fiance dumped her, to attend the Foundation Day celebration, and even that's gone relatively smoothly.

However, there's political unrest brewing, and Iris has shadowy opponents in high places who are setting her up to fail. Luckily for her, she still has quite a few friends and supporters, but will it be enough?

Like I said, I finished this a while ago and have since forgotten most of it. I had to flip through it to remind myself what had happened. It didn't help that the world of this series is the usual generic "sort of feudal Europe" that's practically interchangeable with the settings of many of the other light novels I've read.

Even though this wasn't the most memorable read, I did appreciate that things finally got a bit difficult for Iris. She'd made sweeping changes in Armelia with hardly a ripple in public opinion, beyond praise for how amazing a governor she was, so it was nice to finally have more conflict and obstacles in her way. That said, I thought things were dealt with awfully quickly and easily. Also, some of the emotional aspects seemed to come out of nowhere. The whole thing with her only depending on people up to a point didn't seem to fit with how she'd previously interacted with her friends and supporters.

I don't know how much longer I'll continue reading this series, but I at least have volume 3 in my possession. I hope the author doesn't plan to keep Iris in the dark about Dean's secret for too much longer, but I don't see how this series will manage to continue more than a volume or so past that revelation, unless the author plans to follow Iris as she turns the country into something as close to modern life as possible (but of course more perfect).

Extras:

Black and white illustrations throughout, a couple full-color illustrations (the cover art, plus character illustrations of Rudius, Gazell, Merellis, Louis, Berne, and Iris), a character list with black and white portraits, and a short afterword by the author.

(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.) ( )