One of my holiday reads that I hadn’t managed to find the words for until now.
Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries
Heather Fawcett
Cambridge professor 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 encyclopaedia of faerie lore. But Emily Wilde is not good at people. She could never make small talk at a party–or even get invited to one. And she prefers the company of her books, her dog, Shadow, and the Fair Folk to other 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, who manages to charm the townsfolk, get in the middle of Emily’s research, and utterly confound and frustrate her.
But as Emily gets closer and closer to uncovering the secrets of the Hidden Ones–the most elusive of all faeries–lurking in the shadowy forest outside the town, 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.
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I wasn’t sure what I was expecting from this book because I went into it fairly blind. I saw the cover and the title and figured it was one for me. I always love a book with a little magic, and an encyclopaedia of fairies sounded like it was going to involve an interesting adventure.
I loved the setting—a snow-covered, remote small town where everyone knows everyone—which was unexpected but perfect for this story. Something about the unforgiving landscape makes Emily’s search for the fae a little more extraordinary. Also, the community in Hrafnsvik adds a lot of warmth to the story. They go out of their way to make Emily feel welcome even after she inadvertently offends them.
Emily took a minute for me to get used to but I really liked her, she doesn’t fit in with everyone and her reactions are not always where others feel they should be but that made me admire her more. I loved that all of that awkwardness fell away when she was talking to the faeries, she was able to determine the best way to approach them and get what she needed without giving too much away.
Wendell on the other hand I liked from the start and I have to admit it tickled me that almost everything he did wound Emily up. Their natures complimented each other well even though they were opposing, she needed his charm to help smooth things over sometimes even if she didn’t think she did and he needed her ingenuity.
The story is told through journal entries at first I wondered if it would work or if I would start to find Emily’s formal style a little tedious but actually it did. It helped give a sense of time as in the faerie realm time moved differently and managed to give some insight into more than just Emily’s thoughts which I didn’t think would be possible but worked very well.
The pace was a little slow at the start but since I had plenty of time for reading I quite enjoyed it, it did start to pick up as Emily ventured out to find the hidden ones and had me pulled in to the very end. The book also gets described as cosy quite a lot and whilst the start of the story has those vibes, it does start to shift and has some dark and tense moments, which I enjoyed and added to the overall atmosphere of the story but could be a bit of a shock if you were just expecting cosy.
I am excited for the next book in the series because almost everything from this story is wrapped up so I know it is going to be a new adventure for Emily and I am looking forward to it.
everywhere-and-nowhere.com 