Blackberry Honey

A pleasant GL visual novel indeed, generally with a more light-hearted tone yet with the setting of 19th century England, it provides a unique narrative of historical and cultural beliefs around taboos of the time period, as well as the treatment of maids as servant-class caste system. The subject protagonists are Lorina and Taohua. Lorina has a habit of ogling at other women's bodies and giving into her increasing carnal cravings for flesh of the same sex while living upon a church-going, God-fearing cast of characters that cling on to a heavily-Christian ethos appropriate of this vintage era. Taohua's character delves into being the subject of Orientalism and human exoticism thus being somewhat of a pariah. And so, this duo together have the makings of sweet, perhaps very bittersweet recipe. But does this recipe eventually result in disaster or miracles? The writing itself is fair, with colorful prose that will wrap back around to certain plot points to deliver a satisfactory full-course. There are a handful of very invigorating, intense erotic scenes to top off emotional moments that are rewarding to both the in-game characters and for the readers that, personally, I felt checked all the requirements to fulfill my adequate taste.

What a wonderful and lovely story I am simping a lot for Taohua

the story is intriguing and the characters are alive, but the game ends much earlier than expected and feel like chapter 1 and 2 of at least 6. Which is sad and dissapointing, could be a great reading.

亲亲抱抱管够，剧情逻辑也没什么槽点，角色塑造上反派和一些配角刻画比较脸谱，像群演一天80拉来凑数的

pretty cute

Hard to rate this one because there are moments I liked, ones I loved, and a lot I quite hated. Firstly, unknown to me, this was apparently an H-novel, which I must have missed either by not reading the tags properly or forgetting in between the time of purchase and actually playing (rather long for many steam users as I'm sure we all know.) So you can imagine my surprise when the two main characters appeared naked. There had been implied sex, but nothing explicitly shown (I checked the store page and learned I had not installed the adult patch which is why I thought there wasn't any nudity up until about 80-90% of the way through when, magically, there was.) Starting with things I didn't like, so that I may end on a positive note, is that almost every single character is either insanely cruel to the leading Lorina, or too cowardly to help stand up for her when others are. Everyone but the romantic interest Taohua seem to exist almost entirely to bring misery to Lorina either through purposeful hate or inability to stand up to it. Barring of course, two minor side characters with tragically little screen time who I did very much enjoy. As for the middling, the novel is full of insane cut-offs, like the entire thing is rising action that runs away at the mere thought of climax (though I'm sure that's less of an issue in the H-scenes which again, have not read.) There's a big fight and something is about to happen? Cut to next day. We start finally learning about someones important backstory? Cut to next day. Lorina gets a kiss from the most unexpected of people after a beautiful scene that finally made me start caring about a character I had been hating up till then? Cut to next scene (and revert any progress with that character any other time they show up.) It was very frustrating to always be getting so close to something interesting just to see the title card read XXTH OF [MONTH] right after instead of actually expanding on it. Included as well is the abandoning of Constance. For most of the story, she is a one note, spoiled, (or spoilt as they say) devilish, and truly evil girl. Then perhaps 60% of the way through we finally have a conversation where she actually opens up for once in a scene I very much enjoyed. But then she's back to evil. Then a little more opening up some followed by immediate retreat into her shell of evil. God how I wish she could have gotten a happy ending. She has some poetic interests I think could have been the foundation of building a good strong actual respect and relationship between her and Lorina, but unfortunately she is once again abandoned at the end of the story, her last act one of inane cruelty. Tragic. I should not be feuding with a 12 year old, I do not know why a child was the primary antagonist. As for the good, I did largely enjoy the romance between Lorina and Taohua, though Lorina was unfortunately stricken by the unfortunate [DENSE PROTAGONIST BEAM] which I do always find a bit annoying, but luckily that didn't go too long. I do wish Lorina had grown her confidence more throughout the story, but I think she ended up fine. Certainly much better than at the beginning. The main star was of course Taohua, who plays the role of singly sane person quite well. As someone prone to speaking a good bit like her, I was of course intrigued to learn more about such a mysterious woman. And disappoint she most certainly did not! Every new bit of info about her was wonderful (if hard to get at times due to Lorina's shyness) but I'm glad we learned so much about her. I did actually tear up a bit when learning about her history and childhood, it was easily the best part of the story. The ending is saccharinely sweet and I think well deserved, at least for the heroines. One can only hope the same can be said of the rest of the cast. Also, side note, boob hands. Every woman old enough to have breasts is supporting them at all times with their arms. Just a fun observation. Perhaps one day I'll read through the H-scenes, though I suspect they'll be largely what one would expect. I don't think I missed much by not reading them, which I suppose is a mark of good writing. Thumbs up from me, but it's more a 7ish/10 then a full 100%

It's good!