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Title: The Recipe for Gertrude #3

Author:  Nari Kusakawa

Publisher:  CMX

ISBN:  1401211127

Contains Spoilers

Sahara is desperate to save her parents from her brother, Kyusaku.  Gertrude, injured while saving her from her brother, is too weak to assist her.  Calling on the demon, Curtis, he agrees to return his eye if he’ll help Sahara rescue her family.  It’s a good thing they called for backup, because Kyusaku isn’t fooling around anymore!  He wants the recipe back, and he won’t hesitate to sacrifice Sahara to get it!

Woah!  This volume had me engrossed from the first page to the last!  Sahara learns that after an accident, Kyusaku died and Claude possessed his body when her brother was 7 years old.  Claude, it seems, still had things he needed to take care of, and Kyusaku’s body just happened to be available.  In an effort to resurrect his dead wife, he created Gertrude as a container for her soul.  And her twin sister’s.  No wonder Gertrude has occasional fits as the three souls battle for supremacy of his body!

Back at Encyclopedia, the shopkeeper has a thought.  What if, in the very beginning, when he transferred the words to Sahara’s bones, Claude realized that he could only have one or the other? Sahara or the recipe.  One would have to be sacrificed for the other.  The problem, he thinks, is with trying to save both.  What if it’s impossible?  If he can only have one, which would Gertrude choose?  Gertrude earned some brownie points after this exchange, and the book actually started to feel like a romantic drama.  Previous to this, I thought the romantic aspects of the tale were a little lacking.

I really want to dislike Claude/Kyusaku, but I’m having a hard time doing so.  When he transferred the recipe, Sahara was very young, and he only had one desire; to bring his wife back from the dead.  Years have passed, and now he and Sahara have a history, and whether he wants to admit it or not, he has some affection for her.  Will his resolution to reclaim the recipe win out?  Does he still look at Sahara as a tool to be used to separate his wife’s soul from Gertrude?  Or will his softer, brotherly feelings kick in?

Also contains a really cute side-story about the secret contents of Mariotte’s bag.  Just how desperate is Puppen to catch a glimpse of what’s inside?

Grade: B+

Rated for Everyone