Emily Wilde

Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries by Heather Fawcett, published in 2023. Reviewed by Kiri

Reason for reading

Recommended by Elke

Dates read

• 19 January 2025 - 32%
• 20 January 2025 - 100%

Genre and notes

• fantasy, romance
• historical
• first person past tense (journal format)

Thoughts or review

This book reminds me of the time I submitted a piece to the fanfiction competition at my local anime convention. I was working on the staff at the time, so there was no hope of winning anything, but I was interested in the feedback. What I received was a comment that the story was ‘technically well written but nothing happens’; which I feel is very appropriate to my impression of this book.

I like to think I’ve read my fair share of faerie stories of all different stripes. However while they may share similar bones, this book definitely was one of the richest in terms of the world building, the magic systems and mythology, and atmosphere and imagery that I have experienced. It’s undoubtedly the one that goes the deepest, given its guise as the journal of an drydology academic. This appears to be where this story excels, in conjuring up this little corner of the world with its many creatures, fair and foul. While the village is not always a fun place for Emily, it sounds both ethereal and magical, inhospitable and beautiful.

Unfortunately, this is where I have to go into this book’s shortcomings, or perhaps issues with the way the book was marketed. It has been described by many as a ‘romantasy’, as ‘cozy’ and the blurb itself advertises a ‘heart-warming romance’ and a ‘heroine you can’t help but love’. These claims did not live up to their promise for me however and do not seem accurate.

I zipped through most of this book in one day, because I was doggedly seeking out the romance. Originally, I thought Emily’s love interest was going to be the first young gentleman introduced, as he kindly helps her navigate the village despite her awkwardness and inability to understand social cues. It soon became obvious this was not the case via the introduction of Wendell, but it took so long to broach anything nearing romance I was close to giving up.

I found the romance came a very distant second to the fantasy, which is fine when the book isn’t marketed as such. There were some touching moments between Emily and Wendell, and while we can read between the lines of Wendell’s actions (as Emily clearly does not); I could count the actual romantic moments on one hand and have fingers to spare. I recognise that reading between the lines is a must and it’s all painfully obvious as a reader even if not to Emily, however the build up does not feel believable to me. In general, I’ve never really liked banter unless it is done extremely well, but her ‘banter’ with Wendell comes off more as cruel and cold than witty or fun, which is another reason I don’t find it believeable.

As for the ‘cozy’ aspect, given that Emily was freezing to death for much of the early parts of the novel this is also disputable. All joking aside, there were enough dark and horrifying elements both in characters introduced and in actions taken by Emily at various points of the book that had me grimacing and wondering where ‘cozy’ even comes in.

Finally among the claims, I found our narrator difficult to like, let alone love. I can understand the parallel where she is compared to Sophie from Howl’s Moving Castle, but where Sophie is capable but self-deprecating, caring and generally quite reserved except for when she is determined; Emily is book-smart but clumsy, bumbling, seemingly self-centred and assured in her own correctness. It is hard to give Emily grace because she is too proud, and this doesn’t diminish that greatly as the story goes on. Emily is passionate about her research which should be admirable, but it is to a fault as it is to the detriment of everything else.

Ultimately both Emily and Wendell approach the territory of starting to be likeable, and then both will say or do something to set back my estimation of them. I was intrigued by Wendell naturally because of his secrets and eventually his talents, but none of his actions ever quite get him over the line.

Aside from these clearly very small, very few complaints I also struggled with the pacing of the book. I pushed through several chapters only to complain that nothing had happened. Even worse, I simply don’t like Emily’s written tone. Due to the style of delivery, I felt like we were often being ‘told’ everything, rather than being allowed to infer much. What information was there to infer was coloured by what Emily deemed as important for the journal (possibly leading to unreliable narrator) or was painfully obvious and frustrating that Emily wasn’t able to come to the same conclusion.

I rather more enjoyed our one glimpse into Wendell’s written tone of voice, which shows skill on the part of the author to write such a distinctly different voice. I found myself wishing I could read more from him instead of from Emily unfortunately.

My final gripe is with the various suspense points in the story, where it seems that a problem is building up to be resolved. They either did not resolve in a satisfying way, or were resolved too easily where it did not feel deserved. There are various examples of this but the most egregious is the ending. I don’t want to go into detail, but it did not feel resolved. (Unless this is a clear and obvious plot point for the next book, in which case I don't respect that at all.)

I think this book is also one you either love or don’t. Perhaps you can say that about any book. I think there were too many elements of this book that were not for me, and perhaps I would have enjoyed it more were it marketed in a more honest way, or if it had been written from a different point of view or in a different style. I do however love the way which the faeries hidden in our world were described, and this paints the most wonderful mental image that I’ll be sure to bring with me into the real world.

I think I could be convinced to read the other two books in this series just to see how Wendell and Emily finally are able to be together, but I’m not sure whether I can tolerate two more books worth of her tone of voice. I suppose it will be a consideration for the future, as it’s not a burning need right now. Will it ever be? I’m not sure.

Notable quote

“Verba volant, scripta manent.”

For a camera shy person, such words retain their truth. I had the opportunity to study Latin as part of my Ancient History elective in high school, and while I’ve forgotten basically all of it, there’s something so satisfying about saying Latin aloud.