Book review by Ngarie Macqueen – Emily Wilde series

Article published: 14 May, 2025

Emily Wilde series – written by Heather Fawcett


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 encylopaedia of faerie lore. But Emily Wilde is not good at people. She could never make small talk at a party – much less get invited to one. Emily prefers the company of her books, her dog Shadow, and the Fair Folk to that of friends or lovers. 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 her research, and utterly confound and frustrate Emily. 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.

Reserve Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries here.


Emily Wilde is a genius scholar of faerie folklore, and has catalogued many secrets of the Hidden Folk in her encyclopaedia with her infuriatingly charming fellow scholar, Wendell Bambleby, by her side. But Bambleby is more than just a brilliant and unbearably handsome scholar. He’s an exiled faerie king on the run from his murderous mother, in search of a door back to his realm. By lucky happenstance, Emily’s new project, a map of the realms of faerie, will take them on an adventure to the picturesque Austrian Alps, where Emily believes they may find the door to Bambleby’s realm, and the key to freeing him from his family’s dark plans. But with new friendships for the prickly Emily to navigate and dangerous Folk lurking in every forest and hollow, Emily must unravel the mysterious workings of faerie doors, and of her own heart.

Reserve Emily Wilde’s Map of the Otherlands here.

 


 

Emily Wilde has spent her life studying faeries. A renowned dryadologist, she has documented hundreds of species of Folk in her Encyclopaedia of Faeries. Now she is about to embark on her most dangerous academic project yet: studying the inner workings of a faerie realm-as its queen. Along with her former academic rival-now fiance-the dashing and mercurial Wendell Bambleby, Emily is immediately thrust into the deadly intrigues of Faerie as the two of them seize the throne of Wendell’s long-lost kingdom, which Emily finds a beautiful nightmare, filled with scholarly treasures. Emily has been obsessed with faerie stories her entire life, but at first she feels as ill-suited to Faerie as she did to the mortal world-how could an unassuming scholar like herself pass for a queen? Yet there is little time to settle in-Wendell’s murderous stepmother has placed a deadly curse upon the land before vanishing without a trace. It will take all of Wendell’s magic-and Emily’s knowledge of stories-to unravel the mystery before they lose everything they hold dear.

Reserve Emily Wilde’s Compendium of Lost Tales here.

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