Japanese teen Maki was a big fan of a novel series called The Noble King where Prince Sirius fell in love with a lower ranking noble named Sil. Unfortunately, with both being male, there’s a big issue as to how the royal line would continue. In The Noble King, Sirius’ sister, Octavia, volunteers to give birth to a child for Sirius and Sil to raise.
But for Maki, who has now been reborn as Octavia? Hard pass! Even though she was a Sirius x Sil fan as a reader of The Noble King, this Octavia wants to fall in love and has an uneasy relationship with her brother. That’s part of the reason Octavia lies and says she has someone she loves. But now she must find someone to play the part of her boyfriend…which isn’t easy to do in a world where men are very likely to end up with men! Her latest bodyguard, Klifford, is especially out of the question. Even when he ends up blessing her with his magical protection.
The current shoujo light novel marketplace is flooded with young ladies who have been reborn as the antagonist in a story, usually the fiancée of the crown prince. Whether the protagonist accidentally ends up winning the prince’s heart or is happily chased off to live a slow, easygoing life, Octavia’s status alone as a non-villainess makes her stand out.
But that isn’t the only way she and the series shine. Octavia may not be facing life or death, that doesn’t mean she’s just going to accept her lot in life. Maki was a big fan of The Noble King, but between her (self-proclaimed) crappy memory and dying in the midst of the series, she doesn’t know anything and everything about this world. In fact, despite having spent 16 years as Octavia, she is ignorant of certain legends and many swirling rumors (some of which, ironically, have her cast in a villainess-like light). In addition, Octavia admits at times to using her power and influence to get what she wants. That doesn’t make her a terrible person; it makes her human, because, hey, who doesn’t like getting their way and free perks once in a while?
So unlike many isekai protagonists, Octavia is hardly OP or playing chess while everyone else is playing checkers. In these two volumes, her big mouth has forced her to produce a boyfriend, and she is on the hunt for a candidate to play along. Klifford would be the obvious choice. Even though Octavia has had her heart broken by bodyguards before, Klifford is an Adjutant, someone who makes a magical vow to fulfill all of a Sovereign’s wishes and can detect when his Sovereign is in danger. Octavia is surprised by this fact and even more stunned when she’s made his Sovereign. While Octavia puts her full trust in him, she still is searching elsewhere for a fake boyfriend candidate.
This search has a hard deadline of only two weeks, and the author notes they are purposefully not making this just a typical fake relationship romance. Readers can see from Klifford’s and others’ chapters the budding chemistry between Octavia and Klifford even if the two themselves don’t realize it, so depending on how Mamecyoro crafts this series, these two in-story weeks could feel more like two years because there are a lot of other elements here at play: Sirius’ memory seems tampered with, the younger Prince Alexis has a strained relationship with the king, Sil trying to prove himself worthy of Sirius, and Klifford’s past as an infamous soldier. There were a couple of parts in volume 2 that I felt were a bit shoehorned in (like Octavia suddenly telling readers about a pen pal right before they meet at a ball), but the first volume establishes all kinds of intrigue.
When you add in Octavia’s narration in which she has no problem raving about her favorite things (like the soft feathers on her fan) or cussing out things that irritate her (her lie about having a beloved being exposed to her father), The Princess of Convenient Plot Devices is one of the most enjoyable novels I’ve read in a while. I imagine a number of readers being frustrated that Octavia doesn’t just get Klifford to fill the spot of her fake boyfriend, but family drama and the greater mysteries of this world distract from that obvious annoyance.