Title: High Society

Author/Story: Gyeonwoo (original novel)

Artist: Surreuk Comics

Rating: R-15

Genre: Romantic fantasy

Hosted On: Manta Comics

Official Link(s): English

Official Summary:

Sell me! I’ll be the most expensive lady to obtain.

While scheming to get out of an arranged marriage, Cesare runs into Adele, a shoeshine girl from the slums. The two make a 3-month deal to help Cesare elude marriage. However, Adele is so different from the women he’s met before that he can’t help but be drawn to her.

My Thoughts:

High Society is a lot.

It begins with Adele, a shoeshine girl whose identity as a woman has just been revealed by thugs in the back alleys of the city’s slums. In her attempt to escape, she crosses paths with the handsome libertine Cesare Buonaparte. Despite not being related – not a single drop of blood connects them – they look like they could be brother and sister, and that’s exactly what Cesare needs to keep from being swept up into an unwanted and unprofitable match with Lucrezia Della Valle, a young woman who is absolutely obsessed with him.

This is a fake everything series. Cesare hires Adele to pretend to be his sister as they share the same golden eyes and dark hair, promising to make her into a perfect noble woman to be married off to Lucrezia’s older brother instead. Think Pygmalion with an incest angle.

Yes, I said an incest angle. Since Cesare and Adele are pretending to be siblings to all but a few of his aides, everyone in high society is supposed to see her as his father’s illegitimate daughter that he so graciously found and took in. The problem there? Cesare wants Adele carnally. He makes it pretty clear early on, with lingering looks and the way he dotes on her in public, especially in front of potential lovers where he treats her as a threat to their access to his body. It doesn’t help, by the way, that because of his actions while having Adele taught manners and whatnot, the tutor spreads a rumor that he picked up a girl from a brothel and is pretending that she’s his sister on some weird kink or power shit.

When Lucrezia is introduced, she responds about as well as you could expect to that rumor. You know… she immediately tries to kill Adele, and as a result, Cesare gets hurt. There’s this scene where Lucrezia comes running into Cesare’s bedroom expecting him to say nice things to her, but instead she walks in on Adele practically in Cesare’s lap, dressed in her nightgown while he’s shirtless and bandaged up. They do not look like siblings despite the physical similarities. They look like lovers, interrupted.

Obviously, if you’ve listened to the second episode of my podcast with my friend Adrie, you’ll know I love that shit. Cesare is a petty and pretty monster, abusive in a way that’s very reminiscent (to me) of Taxian-Jun/Mo Ran from 2ha, and he’s locked on to Adele as if he cannot imagine parting with her at all. He doesn’t like her, doesn’t trust her, but he wants her. Badly. He is so obsessed with her that he even finds himself rejecting the idea of using her for the very purpose she’s been “hired” for, suggesting that he keep her for himself rather than marry her off.

Again, every single person in high society thinks that she is his sister.

This is a very slow going series – less than thirty chapters are currently up – but there are already rumors all across high society about the reality of Cesare and Adele’s relationship even before her official debut. High Society is romantic fantasy, but we haven’t really gotten to that part yet. Either part, actually. It’s not particularly romantic and there’s no fantasy element that I’ve noticed. What is present is a truly scalding chemistry between Cesare and Adele, and since it’s that sort of sexy toxic romance that got me into my other read (Betrayal of Dignity), I have to say… I recommend it.