By Hailey McPheron
Disclaimer: This review contains spoilers about the plot and background. This book review is solely my opinion after reading the book.
In 2023, writer Heather Fawcett released the first book of the Emily Wilde trilogy. The first book of the trilogy is Emily Wilde’s Encyclopedia of Faeries which takes place in 1909. Fawcett directed the books toward teens and adults who want a cozy book full of faeries. Get ready to settle down with your hot chocolate and take a glimpse into the snowy fictional village Hrafnsvik located in the now-day Ljosland.
I had heard about this book online after looking for books like Once Upon a Broken Heart by Stephanie Garber. So, I decided to get it hoping it’d live up to the online recommendations, but honestly at the beginning, I personally struggled to pick it up until I got through the first part. Then, I fell in love with it. The way Fawcett writes is unique; she writes it as Wilde’s academic journal but still includes those moments that aren’t academic, which makes it so relatable.
The main character is Emily Wilde, a Cambridge professor who is very invested in finding out more about faeries. The story starts off by Wilde traveling to a town in Ljosland, Norway, called Hrafnsvik to find the “Hidden ones,” a type of faerie, so she could research and document them. She settles into an old cottage that a farmer, Krystjan Egilson, owns and meets the other villagers who can help her along her journey. A fellow colleague, Wendell Bambleby, comes to help her research despite her protests. The two banter back and forth having two very different personalities. The relationship between the two is most like a cat and dog. Bambleby, being the dog who always reaches out to others, and Wilde being the cat, who doesn’t like talking to anyone, strains the relationship with the villagers.
As the story moves on, they find out that faeries had much more to do with the small village of Hrafnsvik. In an old broken-down house lived a type of faerie called a “Challenging” who had replaced a couple’s son and tortured them, wanting to go back to his own home where he had been sent off. Later she goes exploring into the woods running across the tree where the faerie king had been trapped for years. While trying to examine the leaves, she accidentally touches one leading to an enchantment being set on her finger. This enchantment forced her to chop down the king’s tree setting him free where he then asked (more forced) Emily to marry him.
Children, teens, and young adults were getting stolen from their homes by the “Courtly fae.” The villagers beg Wilde and Bambleby to help them get two of the village girls back. They set off on a new and unexpected adventure together to save the village from the “Courtly fae.”
This book is full of banter, adventures and a twinge of romance. It is written in a style I haven’t seen before, but it made the book all the better, being very descriptive and full of unknown words.
The McNicholas Milestone 