Emily Wilde’s Compendium of Lost Tales by Heather Fawcett: review

5/5 stars on Goodreads

Emily Wilde's Compendium of Lost Tales by Heather Fawcett

In the third Emily Wilde book, it has come time for Emily and Wendell to claim back his kingdom in the faerie. The book picks up right where the previous ended, with the same journal entry, as the pair go through the door to faerie. They prepare for the worst, but everything goes well.

Too well, it turns out. Because the former queen has put a curse on the land which kills the nature, and it’s spreading. Emily must head back to the human realm and search for suitable fairytales to find out what kind of curse it is and how it’s broken. She even has surprise help from Professor Rose and her niece Ariadne.

And they find the solution. Problem is, someone has to die for it. Back to research it is. And it turns out, you can cheat death and change the story. But the fairytales don’t like it. At all. To stop things from becoming even worse, Emily has to get help from someone who might want her dead to rescue someone who definitely does.

This was another great story. Stakes were high and academic research was on point. Emily had less trouble in faerie than she feared, but she was happy for a chance to stay in the human realm too. Wendell was as attentive of her as ever, even more so now that his magic is properly back. (Endless journals for Emily.) The ending was good, if this was the last book, but as it sent the pair on yet another research expedition, there’s room for more books of their adventures too. I’d definitely read them.

I received a free copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Emily Wilde’s Map of the Otherlands by Heather Fawcett: review

5/5 stars on Goodreads

Emily Wilde's Map of th Otherlands by Heather Fawcett

Emily Wilde’s Map of the Otherlands is the second book in Fawcett’s delightful alt-history series set in 1910s academia. Emily Wilde is a researcher in dryadology that studies fairies and other mythological beings that aren’t mere folktales in this universe. She’s a resourceful, no-nonsense woman in her early thirties, and the books are narrated as her journal entries.

In the first book, she conducted field studies in Norway with her colleague and academic rival Wendell Bambleby, but it turned out he’s not a human but an exiled king of a fairyland. He’s joined academia because he’s searching for the door to his dominion. The two became romantically involved and he even asked for her to marry him. She didn’t give him an answer.

In this second book, the pair sets out to search for the door. Emily has become convinced that a researcher who disappeared in the Austrian Alps fifty years earlier had found a nexus that is a door to several places simultaneously, Wendell’s kingdom included. All they have to do is trace her footsteps.

Joining them is their head of department, Professor Rose, who doesn’t trust her research methods, and Emily’s niece and assistant, Ariadne, who is a bit afraid of her and a lot afraid of Wendell, after learning who he truly is.

They find themselves in a tiny village in the middle of nowhere surrounded by borderlands to fairy and with people who are at least partially fay themselves. Finding the door isn’t easy though, even if the villagers can pinpoint the exact place where the researcher disappeared, and have seen her wandering around for decades, lost in the fairylands. Making things even more difficult are the hostile or mischievous fairies attacking or hindering them, and the assassins sent by Wendell’s step-mother who has usurped his throne.

The biggest problem is, however, that Wendell has been poisoned by the assassins. They try everything to cure him, but in the end the only solution is for Emily to travel to his kingdom for a special cure. It’s never wise for a human to go to fairy, and less so when the place is ruled by the person who wants them both dead.

This was another great book. I like Emily’s dry academic tone with which she records everything, with footnotes, and her unwavering belief in herself. Wendell is funny with his fastidious ways, and his devotion to Emily is heartwarming. Professor Rose was a good addition, if annoying at times, and Ariadne was nice, even if she didn’t really rise from the background.

The story flowed smoothly, helped by Emily’s habit of recording only the pertinent. That lowered the tension during the action scenes though, as she left a lot unsaid, but it made the overall feel of the book cozier. And she finally gave her answer to Wendell’s proposal too. Onwards to the next book.

Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries by Heather Fawcett: review

4/5 stars on Goodreads

Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries by Heather Fawcett

Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries starts Emily Wilde series of historical fantasy romances. The book is set in the early twentieth century and it follows Emily, a Cambridge scholar of faeries. She’s determined to write the definitive encyclopaedia of them and for that, she’s come to a remote island somewhere off the coast of Norway, right as the winter is starting.

Emily isn’t exactly a peoples’ person, so first thing, she manages to offend most people in the village. And her troubles only worsen when a fellow scholar Wendell Bambleby shows up and decides to take part in her research. Sharing a cottage with the boisterous man is straining for her, no matter that he smooths things over with the villagers, but then truth about him comes out, changing everything.

The winter is cold and full of adventures that put Emily and Wendell in danger time after time. But it’s all in the name of research and a paper they plan to present together at a conference of faery studies. If they can get out of the clutches of a faery king, that is.

The book is written in the form of a research diary, complete with footnotes. Everything is told after the fact, though in a very readable first-person account. A couple of times, the point of view changes to Wendell’s, when he gets his hands on her research notes. The story gets a moment to get going, but then it’s a delightful fantasy with a bit of romance between a single-minded protagonist and her suitor who is amazingly patient with her.

This is the first book in the series, but the story is complete without cliffhangers. There are enough open questions though, mostly about Wendell, for many books to come. Looking forward to reading more.

I received a free copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.