Since you're new to JNC, getting a membership plan that lets you use the Readers Library would be a good value, it's like Kindle Unlimited by JNC: https://forums.j-novel.club/topic/9662/readers-library-ongoing-list-of-titles-updated-january-5-2026/26

I've read and enjoyed all of these. You might notice a bunch of the recommendations above are included.

Titles in bold have more prominent romance elements, in my opinion of course.

"All volumes available" titles

A Cave King’s Road to Paradise: Climbing to the Top with My Almighty Mining Skills!
Altina the Sword Princess
Death's Daughter and the Ebony Blade
Deathbound Duke's Daughter
Full Clearing Another World under a Goddess with Zero Believers
I Saved Too Many Girls and Caused the Apocalypse
Lazy Dungeon Master
Me, a Genius? I Was Reborn into Another World and I Think They’ve Got the Wrong Idea!
Mixed Bathing in Another Dimension
My Big Sister Lives in a Fantasy World
Paying to Win in a VRMMO
Prison Life is Easy for a Villainess
Seriously Seeking Sister! Ultimate Vampire Princess Just Wants Little Sister; Plenty of Service Will Be Provided!
The Extraordinary, the Ordinary, and SOAP!
The Game Master Has Logged In to Another World
The Reincarnator and the Goblin Maiden’s Happily Ever After: Using a Past Life to Keep a Joyful Wife
Why Shouldn’t a Detestable Demon Lord Fall in Love?!
Wild Times with a Fake Fake Princess
Yashiro-kun's Guide to Going Solo
Young Lady Albert Is Courting Disaster

Partial Availability - First 3 volumes are available

Arifureta: From Commonplace to World’s Strongest
D-Genesis: Three Years after the Dungeons Appeared
Demon Lord, Retry!
In Another World With My Smartphone
Infinite Dendrogram
Isekai Walking
Let This Grieving Soul Retire (Light Novel)
Making Magic: The Sweet Life of a Witch Who Knows an Infinite MP Loophole
My Quiet Blacksmith Life in Another World
Now I'm a Demon Lord! Happily Ever After with Monster Girls in My Dungeon
Taking My Reincarnation One Step at a Time: No One Told Me There Would Be Monsters!
The Great Cleric (Light Novel)
The Invincible Little Lady
The Unwanted Undead Adventurer
To Another World... with Land Mines!

Yes, that's more than half of the Reader's Library, but JNC has good taste in what they license.

Also, the other half is still worth trying if you get the Library membership. My taste in novels is going to be different from yours. so you might love something I think is just OK.

@myskaros love you guys! While very excited, your amazing work is worth the wait.

For a moment I thought JNC decided to rescue the LN, but it's nice to see it's back being published in the west.

@GeorgeMTO That's a bummer, I'm a physical media guy and will read things digitally if that's the only way, (out of prints as an example) but if I have to wait for a physical copy then that's a small price to pay :-)

@Geezer-Weasalopes - 23-24 are a bit like the sugar route volume where they head off away from everyone to a new land. Also a bit like 22, but without the silly goddess avatars to liven things up. Tenion says so too.

They were less interesting to me than prior volumes though partly because of 23 mangling the first half of the stoy.

From the ending of 24 they will be heading back to the normal Shiga/Saga haunts in volume 25.

I enjoyed 24, but if you're struggling to stay interested you could skip 23-24 and not miss much.

@TBthegr81 the price/length metric works if the experience is equally enjoyable, and a lot of people prefer more visual media like anime and manga than books.
My friends are all certified nerds but I'm still the only LN reader in the group, and when talk about anime we like and I mention that they are based on LNs that have 5x more story content, the typical answer is "cool, let's hope they'll make a season 2 then".

@topgnu said in suggestions for a novel to read?:

@HarmlessDave I love the ramblings in Unwanted Undead and slow down to read them all in detail. To each their own.

Will try the Grieving Soul anime. I have skimmed its volumes 3 to something then dropped it altogether, but maybe an anime will make it more digestible to me.

Log Horizon's anime was quite a bit better than the LN, I think. More because the LN was poorly written from a technical standpoint; part of it could have been translation issues, but there was also a lot of rambling, info dumping, and broken pacing and plot structure.

@Reshes

Hello,

Sorry for any confusion. A few things to go over here:

It isn't that we are against advertising print editions put out by our friends at Yen Press and Seven Seas. Just that it isn't our license. It is theres, and we leave advertising to them.

While Yen Press is the print publisher for Hell Mode.
J-Novel Club is the print publisher for Campfire Cooking.

Our last print blog post has a recap of our last batch of print announcements.
https://j-novel.club/blog/new-titles-for-print-release

These are from February, so they are not in the carousel anymore,

We do have a filter for series printed by Yen Press (and Seven Seas): https://j-novel.club/series?search=tag:"print by yen press"

Thank you

@Renn Historically, LN series that have older anime adaptations (not within the last couple years) do not sell well. Unfortunately, we've licensed plenty of them and they have taught us that there simply isn't enough demand for them to be worth the time and resources needed to license and publish more.

Hoping for a volume 15.

@doceirias I see, ok. Thanks for the response.

I was satisfied with the ending we got, I don't know what has been added to the web novel so I'm not sure if the plot kept going or there are just short stories, an epilogue or whatever.
Would be nice if JNC was able to vrjng that material to us, especially for other series that were axedwithout a proper conclusion, but from what I understood it's not easy and might create problems with Japanese publishers. I'm not even sure the contracts between authors and the original publishers allow the former to negotiate with a new publisher if the series are canceled, so JNC publishing those web novels themselves might not be possible to begin with.

Audiobooks in general are not for me, mostly because I can read much faster than normal speech, but also because the voices aren't what I'm expecting.

I have the same problem with a fair amount of YouTube instructional content. Videos are good for showing some things like setting up a computer in a specific case, but I'd much rather read text than wait for someone to slowly explain something.

@leej nothing I've heard. V10 came out of nowhere when we weren't expecting it.

@Serah said in What are your favourite Top 5 (2025):

Since I know the other titles already you have mentioned in your top 5 and honourable mentions - how about the rising stars of yours? Or maybe you have another tip like Zilbagias for me.

Err, what about the Rising Stars? Or are you just asking if I have any others? Because that list hasn't changed. Though, I did read all seven volumes of Dungeon Crawler Carl recently. Not a light novel, but now it's one of my favorite series of all time.

Anyway, a few that didn't make it into my top five but have been there before or are well regarded:

Conqueror from a Dying Kingdom (currently stalled at v7) A Pale Moon Reverie (complete at v3) Fiance No More (complete at v3) Dahlia in Bloom (ongoing) Ideal Sponger Life (ongoing?)

Adding to what GeorgeMTO said, the series is published by Shufunotomosha under their Hero Bunko label. Below are four licensed series from the same publisher.

The Apothecary Diaries
Shufunotomosha released Volume 16 on 2025-05-30. That will be 161 days this Friday.

I Could Never Be a Succubus!
J-Novel Club finished Volume 6 pre-pub wise on 2025-02-08. Japan had released Volume 7 on 2024-07-31 and J-Novel Club didn't start Volume 7 pre-pubs until 2025-04-05. That is a 248 day gap, however it is possible that the delay between J-Novel Club finishing Volume 6 pre-pubs and starting Volume 7 pre-pubs had nothing to do with licensing.

The Ideal Sponger Life
J-Novel Club caught up to Japan with Volume 14 pre-pub wise on 2023-10-24. Japan then released Volume 15 on 2023-12-28 and J-Novel Club didn't start Volume 15 pre-pubs until 2025-01-28. That is a 397 day gap.

Restaurant to Another World
Seven Seas caught up to Japan with Volume 5 on 2020-10-22. Japan then released Volume 6 on 2021-10-29 and Seven Seas won't be releasing Volume 6 until 2025-11-13. That is a 1,476 day gap.

The remaining three licensed series from Shufunotomosha are Dimension Wave (last Japanese release was Volume 7 on 2024-09-30), Knight's & Magic (last Japanese release was Volume 11 on 2021-11-29), and Seventh (last Japanese release was Volume 10 on 2020-10-30).

@orchio there was a big gap between v10 and v11, so I wouldn't be too concerned right now. J-Novel Club have historically been very good at translating every volume published in Japan.

Fully translated is obviously a fair few years away though.

@HarmlessDave said in Hanashi releases The New Gate LN vol 1:

The New Gate LN

Oh that's exciting. I liked the anime. I'll have to check it out.