7th Time Loop

About

1-Sentence Summary

Every time Rishe Irmgard Weitzner turns 20 she dies in a war and returns to the day her engagement was annuled.

Volume 1:
In her 7th time loop Rishe accidentally becomes the fiancee of Arnold Hein, the man who will commit patricide in order to become emperor of his kingdom and who will start a world war in a few years.

Volume 2:
When the sickly prince of Coyolles comes to visit with an entourage of scholars in light of Rishe and Arnold's upcoming wedding and requests a military alliance, Rishe has to prevent not only the untimely invasion of Coyolles , but she also has to prevent her former alchemy teacher from presenting Arnold with his newest invention: gunpowder.

Volume 3:
During a visit to the church of the Crusade, which Arnold burns to ash in the future, they bump into the young lady Rishe served as a maid in a former life and who is the target of an assasination plot by the church.

Volume 4:
Thanks to a chance encounter with Hariett who will be executed for bankrupting the kingdon she marries into in the future, Rishe winds up crossdressing to be her guard and get to the bottom of what actually happened to the nice and frugal Hariett in her previous loops.

Reflections

To my own surprise, I LOVE this series. There is a certain amount of mystery and clues that spawn a lot of theories as to why things happen the way they do. The fact that the series is ongoing and answers are still far and few between, keeps you invested even after finishing a volume.
The series tells the story of Rishes's 7th life. After her last life as a knight ended at the sword of Arnold Hein, the emperor of Galkhein, who started the war in every time loop, she finds herself back on the day her engagement broke off. As she retains all her memories, she decides to move into a direction she hasn't taken before and runs into the very man who just killed her. By some strange twist of fate she becomes his fiancee and uses this chance to change the course of history. To do so, she uses all the knowledge and skills that she was able to aquire in her previous lives. And this is where the story really shines. Rishe proves to be incredibly smart and puts everything she's learned so far into practice. We get so see flashbacks of her previous lives, see her reconnect with people she used to know and use all that to steer economic and political events in her favor. Every new book in the series poses a new problem that Rishe needs to solve, like creating jobs for the people in the slums of Galkhein, preventing her new fiancee from obtaining weapons like gunpowder and (war-)shipbuiding technology, fighting counterfeiters, spies and pirates, or building partnerships with countries that would otherwise be conquered in the war. The dynamic between Rishe and Arnold is also quite intriguing as they match each other pretty well when it comes to wits and political thinking.

Rishe's Previous Lives: