I’m delighted to be sharing my thoughts about Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries by Heather Fawcett.
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- Publisher : Orbit; 1st edition (19 Jan. 2023)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 336 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0356519120
- ISBN-13 : 978-0356519128
Emily Wilde is good at many things: she is the foremost expert on the study of faeries; she is a genius scholar and a meticulous researcher who is writing the world’s first encylopaedia of faerie lore. But Emily Wilde is not good at people.
So when she arrives in the hardscrabble village of Hrafnsvik, Emily has no intention of befriending the gruff townsfolk. Nor does she care to spend time with another new arrival: her dashing and insufferably handsome academic rival Wendell Bambleby.
But as Emily gets closer to uncovering the secrets of the Hidden Ones – the most elusive of all faeries – she also finds herself on the trail of another mystery: who is Wendell Bambleby, and what does he really want? To find the answer, she’ll have to unlock the greatest mystery of all – her own heart.
Book Review
Upsetting Aud (headswomen of Hrafnsvik) and preferring her books/academia, it appears in the beginning that Emily has more in common with the wild faery folk than the humans in her world.
But then we see a change. Maybe things change due to Wendell’s influence.
As exasperating as he can be, everyone loves him. Emily knows him really well from their shared work, or thinks she does …
Wendell’s arrival changes a few things for Emily – relationships with the villagers, living conditions and much more. I enjoyed their banter 🙂 I can’t wait to see how this will develop throughout the series.
In her quests (notice the plural) to help villagers and the fae, her actions show a different Emily to the one who is glued to her journal.
She’s fearless and has no qualms in putting herself in front of danger, often making decisions without thinking through the consequences.
And there is heart underneath the compulsion she has to find out everything she can about the fae.
I was always wondering what she would get up to and sacrifice next. She’s brilliant!
I loved the isolation, the harshness of the landscape, the dark underbelly.
The way the faery stories are woven through and are an intrinsic part of the community has its own beat. Perfect.
Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries is Enid Blyton for grownups. I loved it.
Related Books
Read the series! I really enjoyed the second book, Emily Wilde’s Map of the Otherlands.
About the Author
Heather Fawcett is a Canadian author of books for adults, kids, and teens, including the Even the Darkest Stars series, Ember and the Ice Dragons, The Language of Ghosts, Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries, and more. Her books have been translated into more than ten languages and somehow all include dragons in one form or another. She has a Master’s degree in English Literature and a Bachelor’s in Archaeology. She lives on Vancouver Island.