Novel Review | The Missing Piece by Kun Yi Wei Lou

Title: The Missing Piece


Shen Mo is an art school graduate. Unfortunately, by the time he graduated and earned a job in his field, he was abducted, and as a result of the trauma from that incident, he was unable to use his right hand to paint. However, he thankfully escaped the incident with his life thanks to Ji Mingxuan. To pay back Mingxuan's help, Shen Mo is in a contracted relationship with him. All so that Mingxuan's younger sister can marry Zhou Yang, her childhood friend, and Shen Mo's ex, without worrying about Shen Mo and Zhou Yang getting back together. Three years passed as Shen Mo and Ji An'an, Mingxuan's sister, left to study abroad together.

Though it is a fake relationship, the lines between and reality begin to blur, especially when Zhou Yang and Mingxuan's sister come back from studying abroad together. Now, with Shen Mo right in front of him, Zhou Yang doesn't try to hide the fact that he is still attracted to Shen Mo, even as his engagement with An'an is publicly announced. While Shen Mo is still attracted to Zhou Yang, even if only due to the memories before his traumatic experience, he grows closer to An'an, and Mingxuan's affections become more and more real. Who and what Shen Mo wants for himself becomes more and more unclear. Will Shen Mo forsake Mingxuan and An'an to return to the familiar love he had with Zhou Yang, or will Shen Mo take the plunge and trade in his contractual relationship with Mingxuan for something real?

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Manga Review | Yagi the Bookshop Goat by Fumi Furukawa

Title: Yagi the Bookshop Goat



In this world, herbivores and carnivores live amicably, though this is primarily because they live in separate zones – one catering to herbivores, the other to carnivores. However, even if you are an herbivore, it doesn't mean you'll be treated fairly in the section for herbivores. This is the unfortunate case for Yagi, a goat who wants nothing more than to work at a bookshop. However, like most goats, Yagi has the habit of eating paper, which doesn't work out too well for his employers.

Unable to get a job at any herbivore bookshop, Yagi goes where he shouldn't: a carnivore bookshop managed by a wolf named Ookami. Ookami gives Yagi a job, and while Yagi does eat a book on occasion, Ookami scolds him but lets him work there all the same. Yagi thinks it is simply because Ookami is kind, but there is something more behind the wolf's good deeds. Not only does he have a complicated past, but he might see Yagi as more than just an employee.

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Manhwa Review | Sweet Caress by Keimjae

Title: Sweet Caress



Woojin is a shy man. He has a gloomy look, with dark black hair covering his eyes and dark, deep bags under his eyes. As a result, people often avoid him. However, what he lacks in social skills with humans, he has in spades with animals. All creatures are inexplicably drawn to him, and he is drawn to them, but in a world full of humans, Woojin is forced to interact. He wears a wig and sunglasses out and about to make it a bit easier.

On the flip side, Sangyoon, with the looks of an angel, is incapable of forming relationships with any animal, though he desperately wants to. What is worse is that he owns and operates his own dog cafe and even has a cat room in the upstairs apartment for the cat he longs to own one day.

During a misunderstanding, Woojin and Sangyoon end up meeting each other. When Sangyoon realizes Woojin can draw in animals of all kinds, he hires him to work at the cafe. There, he helps Woojin overcome his inability to communicate with others; all the while, Woojin falls head over heels for Sangyoon.

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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



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



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 | The Sweetest Man by Haejin

Title: The Sweetest Man



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 , 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



Marina is obsessed with medieval . 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 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!



This is a good old 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!



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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Manga Review | Devils’ Line by Ryo Hanada

Title: Devils' Line



There is a hidden group of people called devils. They are humans born with an insatiable hunger for blood – similar to , though they aren't weak to sunlight. Tsukasa Taira, our female lead, comes face-to-face with this group when her male companion is outed as a devil – a devil serial killer and rapist, in fact, and the person who calls him out? A devil police officer named Yuuki Anzai.

There is an immediate attraction between Yuuki and Tsukasa. But, as their attraction to each other grows, they quickly find that a relationship between a predator and prey isn't going to be as simple as they might hope. While dealing with the personal issues surrounding them are espionage, conspiracy, and worldwide efforts to either empower the devils or stomp them out for good.

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