BL Library - Fantasy

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?

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.

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?

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?

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?

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.

Title: Fruits Basket

Author(s): Natsuki Takaya

Artist(s): Natsuki Takaya

This story revolves around our lovable, orphaned main character, Tohru Honda. Tohru's life is filled with hardship. Her father passed when she was a young girl, her mother died not long before the start of our story, she is forced to live in a tent in the woods due to her grandfather's home renovations and an unkind family living with him, and she works a cleaning job to pay her own way in the world while also attending school.

What Tohru doesn't know is that she has mistakenly started camping inside the land of the Sohma clan, a family of mysterious, attractive men and women who mostly keep to themselves. One of the main members is Yuki Sohma, who goes to school and is in the same class as Tohru, though they do not interact as Yuki is very distant at school. Tohru ends up accidentally stumbling across the house where Yuki is staying, thus encountering the second Sohma Shigure, an older and unreliable author who cares for Yuki as a guardian.

When Yuki and Shigure question how she found their house, they discover she is living in a tent. For her safety, they ask her to stay with them, at least until her grandfather's home renovations are complete. While Tohru is unwilling at first, as she fears being a burden on people, a landslide ends up crushing her tent, which forces her to accept the Sohma's offer.

During her first day with the Sohmas, she ends up meeting Kyo, another Sohma member who hates Yuki with a passion. He challenges Yuki to fight, which, of course, shocks Tohru, but Yuki and Shigure are not surprised in the least. While trying to stop him, Tohru ends up accidentally embracing him, and when she does, Kyo turns into a cat. It is then revealed that Kyo (the cat), Yuki (the rat), and Shigure (the dog) are all part of the Sohma curse, which causes 13 members of the family to turn into the 13 animals of the Chinese zodiac whenever a member of the opposite sex embraces them.