Culinary Chronicles of the Court Flower: Volume 8

Much better than the previous book, mostly due to all the politics going on involving Shusei, Kojin, and a charming new character named Ryo Renka.

First off, Shu Kojin is absolutely unhinged and I love it.

Due to what he did to Rimi at the end of volume 7, Rimi somehow ends up at Renka's estate where she learns more about Kojin's history with Seishu, Shusei's biological father who eloped with a foreign princess. As usual, when the conflict reaches its peak Rimi tries to resolve it with food. This is where the target normally gets enlightened and all is well again, but not this time around. It obviously wouldn't be that easy with Kojin, so she ends up having a lot of frustrations over it.

The romance also kicks back into the plot here, with Rimi admitting that she's still in love with Shusei and outright asks him what she could do to make him change his mind. Shusei, unfortunately, is still being stubborn so I guess I'll be rolling my eyes again as he deals with his internal struggle of choosing between Rimi and politics. We only have three more books left in this series, and sadly I'm still not a fan of the romance... but at least this particular volume is pretty good with Kojin being Kojin and lots of political drama.

One thing that bothers me though, is how the usage of “the consort” to refer to Rimi has increased by a lot. I'm not sure if it's the writing or just the translation, but the term “the consort” just keeps appearing repeatedly, sometimes only one or two sentences apart. It just feels super redundant, and I honestly think a simple “she” or even just “Rimi” would've worked better.