Hello, readers old and new! My name’s Izumi Sawano.
Thank you for picking up a copy of I May Be on the Verge of Ruin, but I Want to Get Married! This book acts as a sequel to I Want to Escape from Princess Lessons and features Brianna, the money-loving friend of the main character Leticia from the previous story. Though she was probably the most popular side character from that book, even I was surprised that she ended up as the sequel’s protagonist.
I wrote I May Be on the Verge of Ruin, but I Want to Get Married so that even those who haven’t read the first book could follow the story. What did you guys think? Hopefully new readers weren’t confused, and old readers enjoyed seeing familiar faces pop up here and there.
The Princess Lessons series is meant to be a simple rom-com, so I once again avoided complicated settings and went for a basic and peaceful plot. Honestly, I’d already been planning on writing Brianna and Nadir’s love story back when I was writing I Want to Escape from Princess Lessons. The plan had always been to pair them up, so I was very glad to finally commit it to paper in a sequel.
Brianna’s focus may be money due to the debt her family’s in, but she’s an innocent maiden at her core, one who still feels like a commoner at heart. She’s probably more of a heroine than the previous protagonist, Leticia!
As for Nadir, he’s a perfectionist with a smattering of issues here and there. And it’s because of this perfectionism that it takes him a while to accept Brianna. He only calls her over to his home when he’s absolutely certain that it’s safe to—which sounds kind of bad on paper, I know. But I do think that while there’s a time and place for idealized men, having a more humanized, flawed hero can be good too.
Since Brianna isn’t a very typical noblewoman, I was anxious to even include her in I Want to Escape from Princess Lessons, but it turned out people really liked her character despite her business-minded nature. What a relief. We love to see a young lady who isn’t afraid to focus on pecuniary pursuits!
I’d originally challenged myself to have Abel act as a romantic rival, but as usual I tend to go for a fixed pairing, which would’ve made me feel bad for whoever was left out, so he ended up as just a good friend. So much for my challenge—I just like fluff.
Ben was introduced as a key character, but I went overboard with the silliness surrounding him and he ended up being mostly useless. As an author, though, I like him. Silly is good too.
Compared to the prequel’s main character, Brianna’s more of a maiden at heart, so I think she was a better fit for a love story. I also had a lot of fun adding more romantic scenes. I’m not used to them, so they were a little embarrassing to write, but I look back on the experience fondly.
I was shocked when the opportunity for a sequel came up. I Want to Escape from Princess Lessons had wrapped up neatly in a single volume, so I never expected it! And I was even more surprised when I heard about the manga adaptation. I thought my eyeballs would fly out of their sockets, seriously. Next I knew I was googling what the adaptation would entail.
As it turns out, I wasn’t just having a wonderful dream, and so the day came when both the sequel and the manga version were released.
The manga was drawn by Uri Sugata-sensei, who added her own twists to it. It turned out very lovely! The character designs are a little different too, so if you’ve read I Want to Escape from Princess Lessons, I’d be stoked if you compared and contrasted the two to see the differences!
Once again, just like in the prequel, Miru Yumesaki-sensei handled the illustrations for this book. Her work is very delicate and makes the characters come alive, which brings a tear to my eye. The thought that our collaboration would be over with the previous book made me sad, so I was thrilled that we got to work together again. I really can’t thank her enough for making my story into something so wonderful.
I would like to take this opportunity to express my gratitude to all those who have worked hard on the publication of this book. Thank you all so much!
To those of you who chose I May Be on the Verge of Ruin, but I Want to Get Married out of the countless books available out there: thank you so, so much.
Izumi Sawano
March 2020