BL Library - Manhwa Reviews

Manhwa Review | A Tender Heart: The Story of How I Became a Duke’s Maid by Aloha

Title: A Tender Heart: The Story of How I Became a Duke's Maid

Author(s): Aloha

Artist(s): Aloha

Liandro is a young boy in a novel, fated to live his life with a painful curse that has destined him to a life of misery, loneliness, and pain. However, the novel’s entire plot is turned upside down when an avid reader, Liandro-stan, ends up waking up as a character in the story. Unfortunately, though, her role is relatively insignificant as one of the many maids caring for Liandro’s household. This particular maid, Evelina, knows something everyone else in her world doesn’t: she knows how the novel plays out and is determined to fight against fate.

Easier said than done, though, as she must break through the cold exterior young Liandro has been forced to put up with as his parents abandoned him, the maids in the house fear him, and he is in unending pain from a curse no one understands. Evelina is up for the challenge, though. Even if she can’t save Liandro from his fate, she is determined to give him all the love he has missed out on and make his life as happy as possible. However, as the years go by and Liandro grows closer to Evelina, what would make him happier than anything is to keep her by his side. Is such a thing possible for a lowly maid when Liandro could be destined for bigger and better things?

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Manhwa Review | The Crown’s Shadow by Haewi

Title: The Crown's Shadow

Author(s): Haewi

Artist(s): Chanok

A random boy from Korea finds himself in another world. While traversing this foreign land, he comes face-to-face with someone who looks and sounds identical to him, like his otherworldly doppelganger. It turns out that this person is Daniel, prince of Rowen. Rowen makes the other-worlder an offer: I’ll take care of you if you become my shadow.

Having nowhere else to go, the boy accepts and is given the name Rael. Rael and Daniel trade places constantly, playing the prince’s role and sharing the burden all of that entails. This goes on for years, with no one catching on, including Daniel’s closest family. Things start to go awry, though, when the kingdom’s emperor comes for a visit.

The emperor is immediately entranced by Rael, who is playing Daniel, and becomes obsessed with him. When Rael and Daniel switch back, the emperor notices immediately but only becomes more intrigued. Finally, on the day the emperor is set to leave Rowen, he goes to Daniel’s father and asks him for a single night with his son, and in exchange, he will give him trade routes and mines. It is an offer the kingdom of Rowen cannot refuse. Daniel, of course, does not want to do this, so Rael, thankful for all that Daniel has done for him, offers to go in his stead.

Rael goes and ends up spending three nights with the emperor before they part ways, and even Rael has to admit that he fell for the emperor, but he admits they may never meet again and moves on. However, he is thrust back into the emperor’s lap when Rowen is suddenly overcome by a noble uprising, and Daniel is murdered. Forced to take the role of Daniel permanently, Rael rushes to the only person he thinks can help him: emperor Lionhart.

Unfortunately, Rael doesn’t know that while the emperor is happy to open his doors to Rael, he won’t be so keen just to let him leave again.

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Manhwa Review | If You Give Me Flowers, I’ll Give You Myself by JO YuJin

Title: If You Give Me Flowers, I'll Give You Myself

Author(s): JO YuJin

Artist(s): Homil

Haewon has been diagnosed with a brain tumor, and with a prognosis of only six months, the possibilities for her future are severely limited. While she is working at a museum in Mongolia, a job she truly loves, her dream is out in the field. She longs to find a flower that no one has discovered and name it herself so she will always be remembered even after she has passed. As a final push to achieve her dream before she dies, she quits her job and sets out for the rural parts of Mongolia, donating all her funds after she purchases a Jeep to get across the rough terrain.

However, not long after leaving, she receives a letter from the hospital where she was first diagnosed. Her former coworker, Dr. Lee, intercepts the letter and discovers that she was misdiagnosed. He has no clue where she has gone, though. Even so, spurred by his love for her, he takes off after her, letter in hand.

Meanwhile, Haewon ends up with her Jeep and all her belongings stolen. Thankfully, she is rescued by the mysterious Eunseong, who has settled out in the deep fields of Mongolia for reasons unknown. Since she cannot continue on her quest without his help and feels sorry for her predicament, Eunseong hesitantly agrees to allow her to stay under the agreement that if she does locate the undiscovered flower, she will let him name it. While he isn’t interested in this prize, it isn’t long before he quickly takes an interest in her, and that interest soon blooms into love.

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Manhwa Review | Bloody Sweet by Lee Narae

Title: Bloody Sweet

Author(s): Lee Narae

Artist(s): Lee Narae

Shin Naerim’s life isn’t going so great. She’s being bullied at school because her mother is a moodang (Korean shaman), and her only solace is online, where she writes web novels and keeps up with a blog. Though she is bright and cheery online, she cannot even speak in real life because it would only entice the bullies further. So instead, she spends her days silently taking every comment and nickname (“wig,” being the main one, short for “witch girl”), waiting for her high school life to finally be over so she can move on with her life.

Unfortunately, there is still more high school life to contend with, and next on the docket for Naerim is an overnight school field trip. As if it isn’t enough for her to deal with the name-calling and abuse during the school day, now she has to do it overnight. Even more unfortunate is that there is an abandoned church nearby where they are staying. It is the perfect backdrop for more bullying of the “witch girl.”

However, these school girls don’t know that just because a place is abandoned doesn’t mean it is empty. While forcing Naerim through the abandoned church, they encounter a closed wardrobe with talismans on the outside of it. They make Naerim open it to reveal a man hidden inside – presumably a dead man as he falls out of the wardrobe on top of Naerim without a word. Of course, everyone is shocked and runs off, leaving Naerim alone in the church with the dead body. As luck would have it, though, it isn’t a dead body but a vampire, and he finds Naerim delicious.

After taking a few licks of Naerim’s wounds, she kicks him off of her and takes off back to where the class is staying, but even as she escapes the church, she finds that a red thread now trails out from her wound, seemingly to nowhere and she is the only one who can see it. However, it’s not clear what the thread is until the man appears on the balcony of the place Naerim is staying. She realizes that the man, named Vlad Fetechou, is a vampire and because he drank Naerim’s blood, a witch, he has now become her servant with a collar and red string that ties them together. If Fetechou drinks enough of Naerim’s blood, he will eventually become human, and their pact as servant and master will be broken, but will Naerim survive long enough to help Fetechou? Does she even want him to become human in the first place?

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Manhwa Review | The Sweetest Man by Haejin

Title: The Sweetest Man

Author(s): Haejin

Artist(s): Haejin

Minhoon and Hyungwoo have been best friends for 15 years. Minhoon has always been inexplicably drawn to Hyungwoo, but Hyungwoo has always had a wall up that Minhoon has never been able to cross. Yet, for some reason, Minhoon is desperate to do just that. One evening, after heavy drinking, Hyungwoo is in no state to take care of himself, and as he has always done, Minhoon makes it a point to take him and let him sleep at his house. What neither of them expects, though, is Hyungwoo to suddenly attack Minhoon, biting him on the lips in a sudden kiss.

At this point, Hyungwoo is forced to admit to Minhoon that he is actually a vampire, and due to the bite, Hyungwoo is now a kin – a partial vampire created as an immortal food source for their creator. A dark world is soon opened to Minhoon, one that is full of violence and danger, primarily because of Hyungwoo’s father, the head vampire, who wants to take control of Minhoon so he can then control his runaway son Hyungwoo.

While Minhoon is struggling to come to terms with his new immortality, the threat of the surrounding vampires, and his daily life, he must also contend with something he has had to figure out for the last 15 years: what are his feelings for Hyungwoo?

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Manhwa Review | I Choose the Emperor Ending by Kim Suo

Title: I Choose the Emperor Ending

Author(s): Kim Suo

Artist(s): jaradog

Marina is obsessed with medieval fantasy. While her dream is to be an author, under the pressure of her family, she goes into mathematics and science, which leads her to create a virtual reality system that allows the user to import their own worlds and live out their fantasies. Then, of course, Marina has to try out her own creation and ends up in a fantasy world that she has written and published herself. Unfortunately, though, she spawns in as an enslaved person. No big deal, though, as she can just exit the game, right? Right?

Unable to get out of the game, Marina is forced to take on the role of an enslaved girl disguised as a young man named Rino. Using her knowledge of the world and the story and her scientific and mathematic prowess, Marina seeks out the protagonist Edward Allen Dihas, and offers her skills to him to become the emperor. Will she be able to help her male lead achieve his ending? More importantly, will she be able to find a way out of the virtual world?

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Manhwa Review | This Villainess Wants a Divorce! by AhBin

Title: This Villainess Wants a Divorce!

Author(s): AhBin

Artist(s): AhBin

This is a good old reincarnation story. A young Korean woman is reincarnated into a novel, and the person she has taken over happens to be the villainess of the story, Carnelia Easter. She just so happens to reincarnate right after her marriage to the crown prince, Caesar. If the original novel were to play out as it should, she would marry the male lead Caesar under the direction of the empress in an attempt to weaken Caesar’s claim to the throne in favor of her own son. Caesar would eventually go off to war, return a hero, proving that he is worthy of the throne, and fall in love with the female lead Gracie Lancaster, who Carnelia tries to get rid of only to cause her own execution, resulting in Caesar being free to marry Gracie and to take over as emperor.

Not willing to set herself up to die this time around, she makes a concerted effort to help Caesar thwart his stepmother’s plans as well as grow closer to Caesar. She does her best to ensure Caesar still achieves all of his goals while she cheers him on from the side in hopes he will grant her an amicable divorce so she can live out the remainder of her days in peace. Unfortunately, not everything goes to plan as Gracie and Caesar don’t seem interested in each other, and Carnelia herself begins to fall in love with the prince instead. As a result, the story starts to change. Will Carnelia be able to keep herself alive in this unpredictable story, or is she destined to die no matter what?

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Manhwa Review | Beware the Villainess! by Berry

Title: Beware the Villainess!

Author(s): Berry

Artist(s): Blue Canna

Melissa Foddebrat is the villainess of the novel All the Men That Loved Her, but the Melissa we are following is not the actual Melissa from the story. Instead, she is a Korean woman who has somehow reincarnated into this novel. Having read the story herself and knowing that her fate is to suffer and die, Melissa is determined to defy the world she has been thrust into and forge her own path.

In doing so, she rescues the female lead from her own fate at the hands of the men who vie for her attention, earns the trust of her family and employees, and even befriends and gains the admiration of an abandoned werewolf. All the while, though, the main plot of the novel continues. Will Melissa actually be able to defeat fate? Or is she destined to fall?

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Manhwa Review | The 101st Heroine by Menanick

Title: The 101st Heroine

Author(s): Menanick

Artist(s): STUDIO D

A young woman is reincarnated as the only daughter of a humble family in the countryside of a fantasy novel. Under her new identity of Evie Collins, Evie is determined to live a normal, productive life with her soon-to-be-husband. Unfortunately. Evie’s world is rocked when her fiance returns home from the capital with a new woman on his arm.

In a fit of rage, Evie signs up to join the kingdom’s latest competition: to marry the crown prince. She doesn’t sign up thinking she will actually get chosen. 100 noblewomen are selected, with the final 101st contestant randomly selected from all the commoner submissions. Surprise, surprise, though, Evie is selected as the 101st contestant. Now, country Evie will have to face off against 100 noblewomen, all while her efforts are being aired to the entire kingdom.

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Manhwa Review | Invitation of the Mystic Messenger by GIMAN

Title: Invitation of the Mystic Messenger

Author(s): GIMAN

Artist(s): MeriG

Hana Kang was not having a very good day. She gets fired from her job, her rent goes up, and as a result, she loses her home. So she goes out into the world with her few possessions, lost and alone. Out there, she runs into a beautiful blond woman who comforts her and asks her to be her friend one day. Naturally, Hana wants to be her friend, too, and after they part, Hana finds that the mysterious woman has left her phone, which gives her the perfect opportunity to seek her out.

However, upon checking the phone for information on the mysterious woman, Hana finds nothing except an app called Mystic Messenger. When she uses the app, she gets a response from someone named Unknown, who points her toward an empty apartment. Little does she know, the apartment and the app are being monitored by members of a group known as RFA – Rika’s Fundraising Association – and because Rika has passed, her role in the group is opened, and they all offer it to Hana. So, with a new job, a new apartment, and a gaggle of attractive suitors at the ready, Hana sets off into the unknown.

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Manhwa Reviews

Manhwa Review | Bloody Sweet by Lee Narae

Manhwa Review | The Sweetest Man by Haejin

Manhwa Review | This Villainess Wants a Divorce! by AhBin

Manhwa Review | Invitation of the Mystic Messenger by GIMAN

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