This Marriage Will Definitely Succeed
Iona, the knight who was once the tyrant's loyal dog.
She devoted her whole life to the emperor, but the lord she trusted abandoned her to die,
and the one who stayed by her side as she lay dying was a husband who was practically a stranger to her.
"I'd like to kiss you, one last time."
"Just in case, I'll say this now—you're not going to die, and this won't be the last time."
She closed her eyes, satisfied that at least she wasn't dying alone,
but only a moment later, Iona realized she'd returned to the past,
and the first thing she considered was how to repay her husband.
It was a humiliating marriage arranged by imperial coercion, so surely he'd be most relieved if I'm the one to call it off.
But she doesn't want to give up the one success of her life—her husband.
So instead, she'll turn this marriage into a "successful marriage," at the very least.
"Duke Leroy, I am formally proposing to you. Please marry me. I will make sure you're happy."
Iona resolves to repay the debt she owes her husband. Just—in the way she wants to.
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FAQ — This Marriage Will Definitely Succeed
So what is This Marriage Will Definitely Succeed (이 결혼은 반드시 성공합니다) actually about?
Picture a female knight regression romance where the heroine doesn't come back burning for revenge. She comes back to fix one specific thing—her marriage. Iona was the Emperor’s most loyal knight her whole first life. She built herself up from nothing as the illegitimate daughter of an abusive noble family, served faithfully, and got completely betrayed for it. The one person who actually showed up when it mattered? Her husband, Duke Leroy Hance—a man she’d basically ignored the entire time they were politically married.
So when she wakes up in the past with a second chance, she doesn’t go charging after power or vengeance. She finds Leroy and proposes to him on her own terms. That's the whole engine of the story—and it's a quieter, rarer premise than most Korean romance fantasy novels use. If you've been scrolling through regression manhwa recommendations or arranged marriage romance fantasy lists looking for something that doesn't hit the usual beats, this is the one people keep circling back to.
Is this a slow burn romance?
Yes. But the kind where you're not suffering, you're just watching two very careful, very capable people take their time figuring each other out. It's a slow burn political marriage manhwa in the truest sense: the romance builds from genuine respect and shared competence rather than instant attraction, which makes it feel more earned than most.
If you loved the pacing of The Remarried Empress, Marriage of Convenience, or Perfect Marriage Revenge—all sitting in the same completed arranged marriage manhwa space—you'll read this comfortably. If you need the couple kissing by chapter fifteen, maybe mentally brace yourself first, because this one takes the scenic route. The payoff exists. You just have to walk to it.
Is Iona one of those weak heroines who gets rescued every five minutes?
She was literally called the Emperor's Sword. She survived an abusive noble family, brutal military training, years of thankless service as a female knight in a fantasy romance, and she came out the other side a tactician. In her second life she schemes, fights, outmaneuvers nobles, uses her foreknowledge like a scalpel, and handles her terrible birth family with a level of precision that the cathartic revenge arc manhwa crowd absolutely loses their minds over. She's not the heroine who cries and waits for rescue. She's the one readers bring up whenever someone asks for a strong female lead Korean web novel or a capable female protagonist ropan. The short answer is no—she is not that kind of heroine at all.
Who is Leroy Han, and is he actually a good male lead?
That depends on what you want from a male lead. Leroy is warm, steady, and never cruel—even when he had every reasonable excuse to be suspicious of Iona, who was literally placed in his house as the Emperor’s spy-wife. He’s the kind of man who quietly shows up in the worst moment and doesn’t make a production of it. He’s not a loud, dramatic, obsessive duke; he’s something closer to genuinely decent.
Readers who like their romance fantasy male lead to feel like a real person rather than a wish-fulfillment archetype tend to find Leroy genuinely refreshing. He's comparable in energy to the male lead in My Secretly Hot Husband or the steadier arcs of How to Win My Husband Over—a husband romance fantasy manhwa where the relationship actually functions like a partnership. Where the discourse gets interesting is when Rihardt shows up, which—well. See the next question.
Okay, who is Rihardt—and why does half the fandom seem weirdly invested in him?
Rihardt is the Crown Prince. He was Iona’s former superior, the person who engineered the political marriage, and in the first life, the architect of her eventual death. He is, technically, the villain.
He is also, somehow, the character a very significant portion of the readership ends up unable to stop thinking about. His feelings for Iona are a tangle of possession, obsession, genuine attraction, and wounded pride—psychologically messy in a way that makes him compelling even when he's doing terrible things. If you've ever experienced second male lead syndrome—that specific misery of knowing the second lead isn't getting the girl but wanting him to anyway—Rihardt is a textbook case.
Korean fandom communities compare the experience to some of the most notorious second leads in romance fantasy manhwa history. Some readers come in for the main couple and leave in a full villain ship spiral. The author wrote him just real enough to hurt.
Does the romance actually go somewhere, or does it just tease the whole time?
It goes somewhere. It takes a while to get there, but it goes somewhere real—and crucially, it avoids the tropes that make slow burn Korean romance novels so frustrating: the constant manufactured misunderstandings, the love triangle interference that resets the couple every twenty chapters, the near-zero romantic progress until the final volume. This is the thing English readers on Novel Updates keep pointing out—the absence of those clichés feels genuinely unusual.
The Iona-Leroy dynamic is most comparable to The Broken Ring: This Marriage Will Fail Anyway in structure—a marriage of convenience turns into real love arc where both people have to actively choose each other rather than just fall together. If you like enemies to allies to lovers fantasy manhwa, the DNA is right.
Is the novel actually finished, or will I be left hanging?
Completely finished. Eight volumes. Full ending. Closed. If you've been searching This Marriage Will Definitely Succeed completed novel or wondering whether this is one of those ongoing Korean web novels with no end in sight—it is not.
How does the Modrov family revenge arc land?
Really well, and early. One of the first things Iona does in her second life is deal with her abusive birth family—the noble house that used and discarded her. Armed with foreknowledge and sword skills and sheer determination, she handles it cleanly. There's no extended wallowing, no repeated trauma for drama's sake—just a woman who knows exactly what these people are and removes them from her life accordingly.
For readers who specifically hunt cathartic revenge arc romance fantasy or abusive noble family comeuppance Korean novel, this arc is one of the most satisfying early sections in the genre. It moves fast, it hits hard, and then the story moves on. Exactly the right amount of justice.
How does it compare to other big Korean romance fantasy novels?
It sits comfortably alongside the genre's best. For the regression romance fantasy comparison: the competence and forward momentum feel similar to The Villainess Turns the Hourglass. The political marriage slowly turning real arc echoes The Broken Ring and Marriage of Convenience. The emotionally guarded heroine who grows into warmth reminds readers of early arcs of The Remarried Empress. The thing that makes it stand out in Korean romance fantasy novel recommendations is the motive for the regression—Iona doesn't come back to destroy anyone.
She comes back to repay a kindness. That's a softer engine, and it produces a different texture of story. Less explosion, more accumulation. If you've read everything in the completed Korean romance fantasy novel list that the community usually recommends and you're hunting for what to read next—this is consistently where people land.
Is this good for someone new to Korean romance fantasy, or is it very genre-specific?
Genuinely good entry point, and one of the better ones to start with. It skips the most alienating ropan conventions—the endless misunderstanding loops, the heroine who exists mainly to be in danger, the love triangle that never resolves—and gives you something that reads more like a character study wrapped in court intrigue. If you're coming in from fantasy romance book recommendations broadly, rather than specifically from the Korean web novel community, it still travels well. The female knight protagonist angle is unusual enough to be a hook on its own.
TL;DR
A novel by Maginot, This Marriage Will Definitely Succeed (이 결혼은 반드시 성공합니다) follows a female knight who gets betrayed by the Emperor she spent her whole life serving, dies in her husband’s arms after asking him for one last kiss, wakes up in the past, and decides the only thing worth fixing is her marriage. Not a revenge story. Not a power grab. Just a quietly determined woman choosing the one person who actually showed up for her—and building something real this time. Slow burn, competent leads, a villain who will absolutely give you second male lead syndrome, and a revenge arc against an abusive noble family that lands exactly as satisfying as it sounds. Eight volumes, fully completed, official English manhwa on Tappytoon.
What genre tags should I know before starting?
Regression romance fantasy, political marriage turns real, female knight protagonist, slow burn, completed Korean web novel, court intrigue, capable female lead, obsessive crown prince second lead, second male lead syndrome, revenge arc, arranged marriage manhwa, abusive family comeuppance, enemies to allies to lovers, partnership romance.
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