Spoilers at bottom.

The story of Silent Witch revolves around Monica Everett, who is known for her silent spellcasting, and being the 7th Sage.
The Seven Sages are a group of very powerful individuals, who answer directly to the king, they are all mages.
Monica, being one of these sages, is given a task by the king to protect his son, the second prince Felix Arc Ridill.
Felix attends the magic school Serendia Academy, and is the student council president. The problem is, Monica is not to be discovered by Felix, or she will fail. Another problem would be Monica's crippling social anxiety.

The story is split into to distinct sections. Main story and after story.
Main story is generally continuous, with the after story having time jumps and smaller separate stories.
Story is generally displayed as romance, but it is not.

Facts:

Main driving point of this novel is Monica's interactions with other characters.
Monica has extreme social anxiety, but not to the point that the story is unbearable to read.
Story has very nice foreshadowing. Characters feel to have depth.
Characters that are important are generally interesting, the author doesn't overwrite characters that aren't all that important.
Later volumes explore Monica's backstory.
The story revolves solely on Monica, anything she is not involved in practically doesn't exist.
Many characters are used as tools to drive the plot, forgotten after a while.
While reading I felt that the author didn't truly know what they wanted to write. The story sometimes shifts gears suddenly, sometimes in the middle on an arc.
You will either love this story or hate this story. The more dedicated you are to reading it, the higher the chance you won't like it in the end.(ending unsatisfying)

Spoilers:


The romance between characters is enough to give readers the idea that Monica will get together with someone, with barely enough romance to keep you satisfied between chapters. I fell for this trap, expecting love to bloom, when nothing happened. During the afterstory Isaac and Cyril seem to compete over Monica somewhat, but it's just so vague there isn't really any drive behind it. I am horribly irritated by these turn of events. Throughout the whole story it's implied it's a romance novel. (THIS IS NOT A ROMANCE NOVEL). There is no satisfying ending, no love, nothing. The author spent so much time building up the idea that Monica will discover her feelings and do something, but she doesn't.

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The light novel 'Secrets of the Silent Witch' is a character-driven novel based around Monica Everett, who is the youngest among the Seven Sages of the Ridill Kingdom. The Seven Sages are great mages who is interpreted in the story as 'advisors' for the king. The main plot of the story is that Monica is tasked to guard the Second Prince Felix Arc Ridill, who studies at Serendia Academy, using her special no-chanting spellcasting powers. On this journey, Monica will have to overcome her social anxiety in order to blend in and not get found out.

Story is generally fun to read, with good pacing, especially if you enjoy the Slice of Life genre, because the story heavily revolves around the little interactions between the characters. Monica is highly autistic, shy, loves to self-isolate, has zero self-esteem, and because of all these traits, her interactions with the other characters bring great comedic value. The story solely tells the tale of Monica, and the other characters are usually not written about much in the story, but they still have a lot of depth. But, at times, a few important plot points are a little bit rushed and revealed a bit anticlimaticly. Despite everything, though, the plot is still pretty unpredictable, the climax is nice, and all of the events makes sense, although sometimes they seem to be a bit contrived and unnatural because the story is character-driven. The story is also continuous, with occasional jumps between scenes and flashbacks.

(Spoilers)
About the ending of the first arc of the story. I find it very fufilling and satisfying. As the author said in the afterword:
"In the first chapter, Monica was drinking coffee alone, but in the final chapter, she is drinking coffee surrounded by friends. That's the ending I wanted to depict from the very beginning when I started writing."
I love how Monica has grown over the past year, and how she cherises every single small moment she spent at the Serendia Academy, as Monica Norton. She keeps every single souvenir given to her by her friends. The peak of this development, is at the Supreme Court, where she stood up and defended the Second Prince in front of a crowd with multiple powerful people, and the King, confidently.

Also, by the way, the story is not about romance at all, and it is just a way to drive the plot forward. Though I feel like the author spent a bit too much time on romance. But I thought nothing at the end is fine, because a timid, weak and socially detached Monica would never understand love is, and would probably never get to comprehend it. Makes sense, because she only got any kind of love in the first few years of her life. Maybe the next arc will dive more into it.

Love or hate the ending, this novel will still be a good read to pick up.

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