(3.5/5)

I think a lot of reader's first instinct might be to compare this to series to A Bride's Story.

Yes, this is a historical romance. Yes it focuses on marriage and the growth of a couple. But it's very different from A Bride's Story, both in location -Tibet- and character. They're working with two dynamically different eras in history too.

These stories are so different, in fact, that I don't think it's fair to compare them.

So I won't. Instead, let me tell you about Blissful Land.

Blissful Land follows up-and-coming doctor/herb enthusiast Khang Zhipa and fiance/dye enthusiast Rati, two youths living in 18th century Tibet who met by chance. Unbeknownst to Zhipa, he's set to marry Rati, a girl who he believes has been brought to his village to marry someone else.

From there, we start to get easy-going peaks into the beginnings of their life as Rati moves in to Zhipa's home ahead of their pending marriage. You can already see that this will be a love match, intonation, despite being arranged: I look forward to seeing that develop.

The story isn't doing anything completely new: it's historical romance with a healthy heap of slice-of-life, but honestly that's just so nice to tuck into sometimes that I don't mind. Not every story needs to do something new: it just needs to execute it's story will, which I honestly feel they Blissful Land does quite nicely.

I really quite liked this first volume: I'll definitely be continuing into the next as soon as I can!