I think this is one of my most-loved reads this year. Definitely did not go the way I expected and way spicier than I had ever hoped. This collects the first few light novels.

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for the ARC.

This has been one of my favorite manhwas. The art style is absolutely gorgeous and the plot is so romantic. When I saw that the novel version was being published I just knew I had to get my hands on it. There is a bit of miscommunication in this series between our lovely man characters but this is one of the few times it didn’t bother me. It kind of adds to their character development.

I will say, if this is your first time encountering this story just be patient! Riftan is rough around the edges for ,any reasons but he is an absolute simp for Maxi. AS HE SHOULD BE. Maxi’s character development is by far my favorite part of this book. It’s seen from this very first volume and will only get better.

This is a must read series and if you’ve finished this volume and want more? Read the manhwa because Riftan is HAWT. He deserves to be rendered into a masterpiece, as does Maxi. Oh and all the side characters as well. You will not be disappointed.

The synopsis of this sounded great, and the cover is so beautiful, this book looked very promising! Sadly this was a disappointment for me.

There's not much happening in this book, it's heavy focused on romance and character development. I personally prefer more plot driven books. Id be curious to see if more happens in the second volume.

The "spicy" scenes in the beginning of this book are non consensual. I thought Riftan was going to be the villain of this story at first. And I'm unsure if that was intentional. Okay go play by yourself go
The book doesn't make any kind of indication that this is a problem. It's a bit unsettling.

That being said, Riftan is not great in the first few hundred pages of this book. On top of his non consensual stuff, his emotional outbursts, and the way he treated Maxi was infuriating.
Then out of nowhere he is suddenly nice, though there wasn't anything that redeemed his previous behavior. It didn't make sense to me. It felt as if Riftan was two different characters.

The second half of the book Riftan was great! I wish we had him throughout the whole book.

The character I enjoyed the most in this book was Ruth, and he is one of the reasons this book got better in the second half.

I also loved the setting of this book, the medieval, dungeons& dragons, monster hunting, type of vibes is so fun to read about. I wish this book touched more on that.

I unfortunately had to DNF this book. The SA in the first section was just too much for me. I skimmed through it and decided to try the next chapter. The husband came back and SA'd the character again. I couldn't do it anymore. The writing was very good and the premise sounds great, but it was just too much for me personally. I'm giving the book a 2 star for the writing, but it was sadly a 1 star book for me.

If you’ve read the comic series on Manta like I have, you won’t find anything new in this novel, but it does give interesting and fresh insight into the characters. The additional words give helpful context.

One downside is that in the novel, some of the dialogue and actions come across way over-the-top, which is more expected in manga, but doesn’t feel right here.

I think I’d recommend the graphic novel vs. the novel.

Like many, I was a fan of the webtoon before coming to the novel. I very nearly DNF'd this book, however, because of the sex scene at the start which was violent, intense, and not fully consensual. While I was able to continue on and came to enjoy the book, I do feel the need to provide that warning for any readers considering picking this up.

Like many others, I started on this series with the webtoon. I was pleasantly surprised to see the novel version pop up in netgalley. I enjoyed getting a little more insight into the characters and a little more "oomph" to the story. I enjoyed this format and think its an excellent companion to the webtoon.

This book was so entrancing to me. I’m obsessed with Maxi and Riftan. At the start of this book I was very worried about reading a whole book on their relationship but it very soon became something I was rooting for. I don’t particularly love the lack of miscommunication but I also think if the miscommunication wasn’t there it would not have the same atmosphere. The only disheartening thing is I cannot immediately read volume 2!!

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House/Inklore, for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This was one of my most anticipated releases for 2024, but I was unfortunately left disappointed. There were way to many sex scenes in this book for me, many (especially in the beginning) were straight up rape scenes. Our FMC, Maxi, would often tell our MMC, Riftan, no/stop multiple times during these scenes, but he would ignore these requests. His excuse is that he finds it hard to control himself around her. I also didn't like how Riftan was discouraging Maxi from learning magic later on in the book. If it were up to him, he would have her sleep all day so he could have sex all night with her.

Some positives of this book; I really enjoyed some of the secondary characters, particularly Ruth, the sorcerer. He tells it like it is, and Maxi finds a sort of friendship with him. She is able to look to him for help on many occasions, something she really doesn't do with her husband Riftan. I also enjoyed the world we are in. The magic and lore in the story is interesting and I wish we got to see and explore more of it than we did.

While I did enjoy some aspects of this book, I found it hard to get over the multiple nonconsensual sex scenes, so I do not see myself continuing the series in this novel format. There is a graphic novel version of this story I may check out to see what happens later on in the series.

Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review. I very nearly DNFed this book. I was absolutely not the intended audience as I was never able to get past the incredibly strict gender boundaries that characters were held to. Early in the book the two main characters end up sleeping together as this is a marriage requirement, this made sense to me as it is meant to be set in a medieval type setting. However, after this, Riftan (the main male character) continues to demand sex from Maximilian (the main female character) despite her quite literally saying "no" and "wait" in many of these encounters, as well as essentially blaming her for every time he was turned on.

While there were trigger warnings included at the beginning of the book in the author's note, they only covered the physical and emotional trauma suffered prior to the start of the book and not the marital rape contained in the story.

I was interested in the world and some of the secondary characters, like Ruth (the sorcerer in the castle), but they couldn't make up for the issues I had with the relationship between the main couple.

I am so excited this story is getting published. I absolutely love the cover art. I have read the webtoon before on Manta, have read some of it on webnovel, and own the kindle books , but this is one I don't mind reading again. There is a lot of Lore and World Building, which I like. Also, there is a lot of romance, which is a definite plus.

So, as the story begins, Maxi thinks she is not worthy of love or anything. She is very timid and shy. She also has a stutter. Which caused her to be secluded and hidden away for most, if not all, of her life. Her father is awful to her and abuses her. She was married to Riftan, and he had to go and slay a dragon in place of her father. Well, 3 years later, Riftan comes back for her, and her father gets into her head about how he is going to want to divorce Maxi and be with the princess instead.

There are a lot of misunderstandings that go on, and most of it is because Maxi won't come forward about anything, and Riftan won't listen. She starts to get better with standing her ground and speaking up more. She starts showing more interest in magic after an attack.

I can't wait to have a Hardcopy and to read the second volume.

This is my honest review, Thank you, Netgalley, Inklore, and Random House publishing for this eArc.

This man is always horny for his wife and he can't keep his hands to himself. The story was interesting, the characters development was good. I loved the gradual development of the main characters as husband and wife despite some misunderstanding and conflict. I hope that the sequel will be amazing as well and I can't wait it!

I can honestly say that this was well done, turning the comic into a novel. It was more detailed. I absolutely fell in love with the character all over again, Maxi, is a character with a stutter that was treated poorly by her father or more like abusive towards her. Riftan is like a bear a bit wild but protective and warm. It gets very intimate in most of their time together, he just wants devour her and she starts to crave him.

I love their story and can't wait to read volume two.

I was an original fan of Under the Oak Tree from when it began releasing on Manta. I had high expectations going in. Overall, the novelization was fairly well done. The story was pretty consistent to the original in content and tone. It also managed to maintain the integrity of the main themes well. I feel like the writing itself was a bit disconnected but otherwise very good!

All links below.
Review is posted on Goodreads, I have the full review scheduled to go via blog on June 16th, I've shared via my story on Instagram already, but the post with the review is scheduled for May 28th.

Review on Goodreads:

First thing you need to know about this, is there are trigger warnings. And some things were a lot more graphic in the novel than in the comic.
I personally found parts easy to skim over if that helps, but it is something to know and not be blindsided about.

This is such a gorgeous story, with amazing characters with struggles that are realistic and make you want to cry and hug or cheer them on. There's just so much to love: the romance, the world & magic, the characters and their journey, etc.

Maxi is a duke's daughter that was abused throughout her childhood, she stutters, and had an arranged marriage to the commander of the Remdragon knights.
Riftan is the commander, Maxi's forced husband, who has scares from a fierce battle and is preparing for more.

They both have flaws, struggles and scars. They both are loyal to each other and grow in a love that you can't help but cheer for and adore.
Healing, identity, learning to trust and love, these are all throughout this first book of the series and it's beautiful to read.

The world is fantasy with magic, monsters, and set with another threat of war as the backdrop. Need I say more?

This book was boring for the first 40% of it but then all of a sudden it got a lot better. The beginning of the book needed to be shortened it was the same thing over and over again almost dnfed.

The fmc is very submissive due to abuse from her childhood but grew over time as a character which is why I kept reading loved that. MMC is rough but never abusive, loves Maxi just wants to keep her safe. This story is mostly just watching Maxi grow some confidence over time and her relationship to her husband

Spice is a 4 out of 5 CW: parental abuse, dub con.
Received copy through netgalley

Thank you to Netgalley, the publishers, and the author for the ARC I read.

I was already familiar with this work because a while ago I had read some of the manhwa on WEBTOON or tapas (I forget which one). I don’t remember how far I had gotten into the manhwa but I think maybe about half of what this first novel volume covers. With that in mind, I was already primed to be interested in the story and the characters.

Ultimately, this story is very easy and quick to read. I got sucked pretty quickly into the story and had within a day or so read ~2/3 of the book. However that was the part where I started getting a bit annoyed with the story and characters and I ended up taking a break for a few days before finally pushing through to finish the story. So here are my thoughts on what I liked and what didn’t quite work for me.

I like the setting of the novel and the world. It’s not super unique but it gives me general fantasy medieval Europe vibes. As such, you can expect castles, knights, nobility, and traditional gender roles (this part annoys me but I have just tried to accept it).

The plot is definitely not the strong point here, this story is definitely focused on characters, relationships, and character growth. So if you are a plot focused reader I do not think you will enjoy this. Almost all of the plot points are focused on driving character growth and they move pretty slowly. But I like character focused stories so that didn’t bother me inherently. I will say, the manhwa reads faster than the novel so I wasn’t quite prepared for how long some parts would take to get through and I do think the story could have been told in less time and it would have been better. There is only so long I want to read about the same issues before I start to get annoyed.

The characters are the main draw of the story. So if you don’t like them, I don’t think you will enjoy reading this. Personally, I like Maxi, our main character. I like the representation of a character with a speech impediment. I don’t think I’ve read something with a main character with such an impediment before. So I appreciated getting to read that perspective and I’m sure people that can relate will really appreciate reading this story. I am hopefully that the author will continue this representation well throughout the full story. But while I like Maxi, it can be hard to read her POV sometimes because she is so insecure. And I fully understand why she is, her whole life with her horrible father would of course lead to this, but that’s doesn’t make it any less frustrating to read. She basically has the same problems throughout the whole first volume and they all stem from her insecurities. She does however have some character growth in this first volume and I was happy to see that.

A big component of the story is the miscommunication with Riftan, her husband. I don’t mind miscommunication sometimes but I hate when it drags on and on. It really starts to drag within this first volume. However, the book itself acknowledges the major issue right towards the end so I do have hope it will be resolved hopefully soon. But it did make it hard for me to finish this first volume because I was just so annoyed.

I was also very annoyed with Riftan. There are good parts to him and really annoying parts. I appreciate that he is very loyal to Maxi, he obviously cares about her, he protects and defends her. But also, like does he even know her? Does he love her or does he love the idea of her (basically possessing a noble lady as a wife)? I’m not entirely sure. I think we will come to see the love develop and the characters to fully know each other in the future, but at least for this first volume, the love feels very superficial. It’s a bit frustrating to read.

Finally, I will talk about Ruth. Thank god he exists, because the story would surely suffer without him. He is the one person that fully knows Maxi’s faults and also initiates a lot of her growth in the story. I very much enjoyed reading a scene if he was in it. He is by no means perfect. He’s selfish in some ways and he isn’t very nice, but he does so much for the story, plus he’s kind of just a grouchy cat really, which is pretty cute.

Ultimately, I am glad I got to read this and I will probably read the second volume, but I need some more growth and way less miscommunication soon, otherwise I may drop the series and just continue the manhwa. I am very happy to see webnovels getting traditionally published in the US and I really hope to see more, especially my favorites. I think there are some really good ones that should really get published and I think the success of this one will likely determine if others do. So I’m very hopeful this one is successful. And honestly, it’s a very popular one so that’s probably why it was chosen even if it’s not the best one. But I’m okay with that, I will be patient and hopefully we can see more coming out soon.

I adored this story! SO much! I had no idea it was a web comic so now I’m going through and inhaling the comic from Manta. The novel was adapted from the comic so seamlessly-it doesn’t read like a disjointed, narrated graphic novel. It reads like a true novel.

There was so much beautiful angst and pining in this story between our heroine, Maxi, an insecure young woman who suffers from a stutter and her husband, Riftan. Riftan was forced to marry Maxi three years ago by her diabolical father and he then left for war the morning after their wedding night. Now Riftan has returned, a decorated and renowned knight, and is collecting his wife. Riftan feels like he doesn’t deserve Maxi because he feels like she deserves to be treated like a queen and provided that kind of lifestyle and Maxi believes that she doesn’t deserve someone strong and brave and capable like Riftan. It’s quite ridiculous because they are both so head over heels for each other and I enjoyed the heck out of the mutual pining. Also, the sexy bits. So much steamy spicy happenings happened in this book. Like, you’ll need a fan trained on you when you get to those parts. The spicy scenes added to the story as a whole, especially because it seemed like that was how they communicated their true adoration and love for each other since neither of them were great at speaking their feelings.

I love where the story is going as we see Maxi come into her confidence and begin to learn how to be helpful and powerful in her own right. I can’t wait to watch Riftan fall deeper in love with his wife and all that will entail!

Thank you to Random House Publishing for review consideration via Netgalley. All opinions are my own.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this arc.

*SPOILERS* This book aggravated me. At first when Riftan didn’t notice Maxi had just been beaten by her father. Very later on, we learned her father had mages heal her. So I suppose he healed that beating too. Also, Riftan is not taking any time trying to understand Maxi. He forces himself onto her over and over again. Once she becomes more comfortable and shows him the slightest affection, his lust takes over. Of course he blames it on her. Maxi infuriates me because she won’t tell Riftan the truth about herself. I get she’s scared, but she needs to open up if she wants this marriage to thrive. Ruth is by far my favorite character, yet no one seems to like him. I’m still not sure why. I don’t know. This series has promise, but it has started out rough. I hope there is much development. I pay for a Manta subscription, so I may read on there to see how much further the series has gotten.

Trigger warning: rape(some detail), child abuse(some detail) , spicy (some detail)

I truly liked this story so very much. Other than the rape scene. Unexcusable and it almost made me not continue with the book. I wish that part would have been written some other way. The story would have been even better.

I enjoyed the developing love story with how the main character found her voice and strength. It was very difficult to come to grips with the actions of some of the main characters. Changing how I felt about them was admittedly hard, in the back of my mind their character was truly tainted.

I didn't know this was originally a webnovel. I felt it read like one though, so I looked it up. It's very popular. Many people who know it will like the novel.



From the publisher

Lady Maximilian is the daughter of the powerful Duke Croyso, but she is rarely allowed outside her family’s sprawling castle for fear that her stutter will tarnish their noble name. When she is forced to marry Sir Riftan, a lowborn knight caught in one of her father’s schemes, Maxi doesn’t dare hope for happiness, let alone love. Her stumbling communication and his gruff manner sour their relationship before it can begin, and Riftan leaves without a word the morning after their vows are exchanged.

Now, three years after their disastrous wedding night, Riftan has returned as a war hero. To Maxi’s surprise, despite rumors that he was offered marriage to Princess Agnes, a beautiful and renowned sorceress, Riftan still wants Maxi for his wife. And when he comes to claim her, his longing becomes a desire that bewilders Maxi, even as she is overcome by the scorching heat that Riftan’s presence ignites within her. As she learns to navigate the intricacies of her new life, Maxi will find herself and her courage, and discover that she is anything but powerless.

This volume collects chapters 1-76 of the original webnovel by Suji Kim.