Book Review: Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Fairies by Heather Fawcett
Synopsis
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
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.
Review
This was an enjoyable read. Emily Wilde is a scientist, but belief in faeries is a given and she works for the Department of Dryadology, studying the ways of faeries rather than speculating on existence.
She travels to Hrafnsvik, in Norway, to the village of Ljosland to learn what she can about The Hidden Ones, a species of faery that little is recorded about. Naturally she finds the local villagers reluctant to talk to an outsider, as if she weren't socially awkward enough.
Emily finds herself getting caught up in the concerns of locals and warnings about "The Tall Ones", whom they fear. Just as she starts managing to get a few crumbs of information, partly through an unexpected friendship with one of the common local fairies, her insufferable colleague, Wendell Bambleby, turns up and she is worried he will grab credit for her discoveries, something he has done in academia before.
Wendell himself is a mystery in many ways and Emily begins to suspect a connection to the faeries that he doesn't talk about. It all comes out in the end, but not before some harrowing experiences and nearly getting trapped in the faery realm herself.
I give this five stars for being a story I kept wanting to read some more of until I finished, but having learned there is a series, I'm not sure I want to continue. I'm very satisfied with the ending as it stands.
