Culinary Chronicles of the Court Flower: Volume 3

In volume 3, winter has come to Konkoku and the emperor is dealing with an emissary from Saisakoku, a neighboring country inspired by the Middle East, who doesn't seem to have much interest in Konkoku as a country. Due to the focus of the story, this book involves a lot more political development compared to the previous volumes. By the end of the book, it's heavily hinted that both Rimi and Shusei are about to get roped into it. Especially Shusei.

That being said, the author managed to keep the right balance of politics and cuisines in this volume. The descriptions of the food never fail to make me hungry, which kind of makes up for how that Rimi and Shusei confess their love to each other and agree to break up in the span of seven chapters. Kind of. Maybe. Maybe not. :')

In any case, while each volume in the series so far has a self-contained story, there's a clear overarching plot that is starting to get more interesting in this book. The characters have also grown a lot since volume 1. Rimi, for instance, admits that she's been relying on the memories of her sister to “save her” from tricky situations. I'm still hoping that she will grow out of it eventually, but it's nice to see a character flaw being addressed properly.

The most prominent growth, however, can be seen in Shohi. While I'm admittedly having a hard time forgetting how much of a prick he was being in volume 1, he is learning to be a better person and a better emperor. For now I'm still on Shusei's side, but we'll see if the next volumes will change my mind.