“Will you marry me, Villainess Estelle Aublanc?”

Estelle, a viscount's daughter with a passion for science, loves nothing more than to conduct research in her field of expertise—magic circles. But one day, the “Ice Marquess,” Gerald, proposes marriage during their very first meeting. Her father explains that this man wants to share his life with the “ultimate villainess,” as she's known throughout high society. But that nickname wouldn't exist if her little sister hadn't gone around misbehaving while using Estelle's name! As she leaves for the marquess' house, still unsure of what to make of the arrangement, Estelle's father threatens to burn up all her research materials if this new marriage ends in a divorce.

“That leaves me no choice. If I don't become the villainess he's looking for, all of my data will be destroyed. How did it ever come to this?”

Estelle decides to live as a villainess to protect her precious research, all while keeping a journal of her daily life at the home of the Ice Marquess.

The Villainess' Journal: Newlywed Life of an Obsessive Researcher has a story by Len Kagizaki and art by Akira Shigaraki. English translation is done by Emma Schumacker. Published by Cross Infinite World (October 31, 2026).

Rebecca Silverman
Rating:

If you thought Katarina was oblivious, wait till you meet Estelle. The eighteen-year-old daughter of an impoverished nobleman, Estelle is fully obsessed with researching magic circles, to the point where she has no clue that her younger sister Alette has been traipsing around high society using her name and garnering her a reputation as a villainess. The first she hears of it is when her father tarts her up and trots her out to meet Lord Gerald, who immediately (and reluctantly) proposes marriage. Assuming that he just likes villainesses, Estelle (who really can't refuse the proposal) determines to be as awful as she can…which really isn't all that awful. And when Gerald, who isn't a fool, falls hard for her, Estelle assumes he just really enjoys discussing magic circles with her.

If you've been reading villainess stories for a while, you'll no doubt recognize that this series is more or less cobbled together out of elements of other stories. The sister using Estelle's name to destroy her reputation, the ice cold male lead, and Estelle's lack of awareness are all things we've seen before – many times and recently for me, in the case of those first two. But what this lacks in creativity it more than makes up for in charm and breezy writing. No one, including Alette, is actually all that bad; it's more that they all have their own reasons for acting as they do that make a lot of sense once you discover them. Despite what Gerald initially assumes (after discovering that his wife is not, in fact, a promiscuous villainess), Estelle wasn't mistreated by her family; she was left alone to do her research because that's what she wanted. She wasn't served cold food out of cruelty, she actually just doesn't like hot food and drink. And she's much more bothered by the “sticky makeup” of the villainess disguise than her reputation being ruined.

For my money, the most interesting character is Alette. We don't learn much about her – she doesn't come into the story until the end of the book – but she's got a sound reason behind using her sister's name that I won't spoil here. She's also refreshingly open and not punished by the author for it. She fully admits that she enjoys casual sex and wrapping men around her little finger, and while in-story people may find that shocking, Kagizaki just treats it matter-of-factly. Her age of fifteen may raise some reader eyebrows, but within the 18th century coded world, it's not particularly shocking. I hope that the second volume gives us more Alette.

She's also not the only character who has sex in this book. Gerald and Estelle do eventually do the deed, and while it's not explicit, its inclusion in the story is, once again, matter of fact and treated as very normal, a far cry from many female-oriented light novels that make it into English. The book can get a bit repetitive – like with My Next Life as a Villainess, chapters from Gerald's point of view repeat conversations from Estelle's chapters verbatim – but the illustrations are beautiful and the overall reading experience is fun. It does just enough to distinguish itself from its sisters to be it's own, albeit familiar, thing, and villainess fans who are tired of isekai should definitely give it a chance.

Erica Friedman
Rating:

Having just read From Bumbling Prodigy to Villainess: Will the Duke's Love Go Unnoticed?, I was not particularly surprised to see many of the same elements in The Villainess' Journal: Newlywed Life of an Obsessive Researcher. Not all the same, but the basic Cinderella premise was very similar.

Estelle is a woman with one very specific interest. That one specific interest takes up all of her time and energy. I immediately sympathized with Estelle, as I too have one interest that takes up practically all my time and effort. Like Estelle, I am considered an expert in the field. Estelle, however, keeps her expertise secret behind a pen name. This makes perfect sense when one remembers that Estelle's family absolutely does not care for her. In fact, her younger sister is gadding about town using Estelle's name, which has given Estelle the reputation of being a, you guessed it, villainess.

Estelle is uniquely (within this context of the book, it's actually pretty typical this season) unsuitable to be a villainess. Her father drags her off to marry a man who also has a reputation, his for being cold and uncaring.

This premise, which does seem to be the color of the season, is handled differently enough that the story does not feel like a rerun of every other story I have read for this Guide. What is set up to be a revenge story is dropped quickly, and the relationship between Lord Gerald and Estelle is centered. Once again, Estelle has to be a little more unaware of human relations than one might credit, but then, again, one can look at her hyperfixation and chalk that up to maybe being less neurotypical than the people around her.

This book is a bit more mature than some of the other LNs with this motif, as well. There is some reference to offscreen sexual intercourse in a rather cloyingly coy way. There is one excellent moment in which the story diverged from the predictable. I enjoyed that enough that I would give this an extra point, but then it did something I simply could not tolerate. Estelle's obsession is with “magic circles,” a phrase I found infantile. Sigils-the word you were looking for was “sigils.” One half-point back off for that, sorry. It bugged me endlessly, because I, too, have hyperfixations and cannot tolerate incorrect information.