It's been a while, but Volume 4 of Spice and Wolf has finally been released. It should have been released at the start of this month (June) but all UK outlets had a delay in receiving it. I then decided it would be a good idea to pre-order from two places and cancel whichever dispatched first... but it seems that the first place who dispatched it never told me when they dispatched it and consequently i've now got two copies. I'm already planning to give the spare away to a friend, so no loss overall!
As usual, there are the 3 beautiful full colour illustrations at the front of the book. The 2nd one features Holo lying down, with Lawrence's arm resting on her, extremely adorable! The 3rd one however seems to have Holo putting on a very disinterested face in the background.
Volume 4 picks up where Volume 3 left off, with Lawrence and Holo travelling ever further in search of Holo's homeland. As they stop off in Tereo to find out more however, things are do not seem entirely normal. Indeed, the plot line of this volume takes on a much more mysterious theme. Economics does not play as much as a role as in the previous volumes, but nevertheless it is an interesting plot line with lots of witty dialogue between Lawrence and Holo. There where also many 'sweet' scenes in this volume and I'm curious to see how they've handled this in the anime series, which i'll be catching up on soon. For reference, this volume takes us covers the mid point of Season 2 until the end of Season 2.
Volume 5 is due out on the 6th of December 2011. As usual, my preorder has been submitted since long ago. Hopefully this winter the weather won't delay it's arrival.
Spice and Wolf Volume 4 is available from Amazon.