I have to admit sometimes my memory isn’t very sharp, and I’m not 100% certain some of the characters Anne knows here were actually introduced to readers before this third volume of Sugar Apple Fairy Tale, were just vaguely referenced in volumes 1 and/or 2, or if they are new to us and the author just fills readers in with how Anne knows them. Either way, The Silver Sugar Master and the Ivory Aristocrat is a major step forward in developing this world of humans, fairies, and sugar apples.
Anne is intent on once again trying to become a Silver Sugar Master, but she arrives just in time to find out sugar apples are in short supply. All confectioners must work at the Radcliffe Workshop in order to earn some apples for their own businesses. That name will raise the ire of readers, as Anne’s rival, Jonas, is a member of that faction along with others who bullied her. If it weren’t for the kindness of Kat, a Silver Sugar Master, and Keith, another candy craftsman who carries himself with dignity, Anne would never have known about the proclamation. That wasn’t by accident, and as Challe learns from Keith later, the icing out of Anne is only going to get worse unless she manages to become a Silver Sugar Master this year. If not, even working as a normal sugar candy maker may be impossible for her due to others seeing her as a threat, troublemaker, or suck-up.
One reason for that? Her gender. As discussed heavily in volume 3, women are very rarely candy craftsmen. There’s the physical demands, but more significantly, religious dogma discriminated against women for an Adam and Eve-like situation. It seems bizarre Anne wouldn’t know details like this between having attended this world’s Sunday school and her mother being a Silver Sugar Master. This probably isn’t a retcon, but this and other details in volume 3 have a retcon-like feel to them with how surprising these things weren’t brought up before and/or known by Anne.
Regardless, Anne works at the Radcliffe Workshop with Mithril as an assistant. Challe manages to be allowed entry due to Keith deciding to use him as a model for Keith’s Royal Candy Fair entry. Anne must decide on her own design, but she’s only allowed to work on it at night or on her one day off a week. This leaves Anne and Challe very little time to spend together, and that weighs on both their minds — especially as jealousy creeps in.
There are a lot of significant events here, but the blossoming romantic relationship between Challe and Anne is at the center of everything. Anne has mostly accepted she likes Challe that way (and if she didn’t, Mithril’s comments would force her to examine her feelings), and Challe is approaching that same point. Challe notices Keith’s noble spirit and how he and Anne can relate due to their shared passion of candymaking, and the daughter of the head of the third major silver sugar workshop takes an interest in Challe. If you’re worried about this love polygon overshadowing Anne’s hard work as a would-be Silver Sugar Master, well, the novel does a good job of tying developments in her personal and professional lives together.
However, toward the end of the novel, things move a little too fast. The only thing that is slow is the characters figuring out the mastermind behind Anne’s end-of-volume crisis, but that should have required very little detective work to figure out. It left me rather unsatisfied after a relatively strong volume, even without the fact the ending is left on a cliffhanger. Even without having watched the anime, I knew this is where the season would end. Thank goodness the anime is being produced after Sugar Apple Fairy Tale has finished, as if it had been produced years ago where second seasons of ongoing works — and particularly ongoing shoujo works — were rare, I can only imagine the rage of having watched the show to see this ending.
The Silver Sugar Master and the Ivory Aristocrat is not much of a stand-alone volume like the previous entries, and it shows Anne and Challe are going to have to push back against the world rather than just change their little corner of it if they want to be together.