Early review: Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries by Heather Fawcett
Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries
🧚🏻♂️ by Heather Fawcett 🧚🏻♂️
🍄 Pub date: Jan 10, 2023 🍄
I initially fell in love with the cover (both the US and UK editions are really cool) and was amused by the title and description, and I quickly discovered that the contents absolutely lived up to my hopes and expectations. It’s charming and delightful and clever and I really enjoyed everywhere the story went.
This book is the very definition of cottage core. It’s so cozy and rustic, it makes for a perfect winter read. There’s cozy fires, snowy forests and tea drinking. But it also has great characters, mysteries, secrets, danger, adventure, and a sweet romance. And it’s presented as a journal of Emily’s experiences during her research trip. The journaling element worked really well for telling the story.
I love the dynamic between Emily and Bambleby. Their banter (or bickering) is delightful. The grumpy/sunshine enemies/rivals thing was really well done. Wendell is a charming young professor colleague of Emily’s who, by all accounts, is quite kind and very accommodating to Emily (and clearly more than a little into her), but Emily is rather annoyed by him. She views him as an academic rival and generally just a thorn in her side.
Emily is a professor and an expert in the field of “dryadology.” She goes abroad to research and catalogue faeries to add to her soon-to-be published encyclopedia in the hopes of furthering her career. I loved the Fairy/Folk elements of the book. I thought the lore was so clever and interesting. I haven’t read any other books about/with faeries before so I don’t know if this Fawcett’s take on them is fairly standard or if it creates a whole new world of them but I loved what Fawcett gave us about them. It was fascinating.
I found Emily to be very amusing. She has the driest sense of humor, befitting her austere personality. She is described as curmudgeonly but I read her as neurodivergent, probably autistic. She exhibits many traits including a complete lack of social understanding, extreme pragmatism, single mindedness, passion for a special interest, and rigidity in her routines and preferences. She checks a LOT of boxes for ASD so that’s the lens through which I viewed her. I really enjoyed Emily’s character because she was funny, dedicated to her work, and always capable of saving herself in dire situations. Well, almost always.
Overall this was a really fun fantasy that explores the faerie realm and throws in some academia and a little bit of romance and I enjoyed it completely. I can’t wait for more adventures for Emily and Wendell in book 2! I highly recommend picking this up.
Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing the digital arc.
🍄🧚🏻♂️🍄🧚🏻♂️🍄🧚🏻♂️🍄
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