冥府の王の神隠し

冥府の王の神隠しis about 28-year-old 伊月 (いつき), graduate student of archeology who has a significant gap in his memory - 10 years, when a devastating landslide covered his village, he lost about 3 months of his memory. The book opens as he travels to an archeological site near his former home, which kicks off events leading to his being sent to the realm of the dead and the eventual recovery of his memories.

(Spoilers for my general thoughts on the book) This felt like a surprisingly low-stakes book to me. The main conflict revolves around the main character and the love interest, and their struggles to understand and trust the other (as opposed to there being an outside antagonistic force). I had a few guesses as to how the story would play out, and while I don't think any of them ultimately came true, I was very satisfied with how the novel did end. This is a (at least at the time of writing) oneshot novel, and I thought everything was wrapped up very nicely.

This book felt like a fairly easy read for someone who's used to reading novels. There's a small smattering of technical vocabulary related to archeology and ghosts, but the vast majority felt like very standard, day-to-day kind of stuff. Grammar I don't remember being particularly noteworthy; perhaps the highest level Bunpro grammar point I remember is using なり after the plain form a verb. Despite that being N1 level, there was very little formal speech, and only a bit of archaic speech (used by one particular character).

This is a BL novel, and I was very pleased with the romance and how it unfolded. Be prepared for 18+ scenes and some interesting descriptions of anatomy.