Heather Fawcett is the author of the middle-grade novels Ember and the Ice Dragons, The Language of Ghosts, and The School Between Winter and Fairyland, as well as the young adult series Even the Darkest Stars. She has a master's degree in English literature and has worked as an archaeologist, photographer, technical writer, and backstage assistant for a Shakespearean theater festival. She lives on Vancouver Island. You can find her online at HeatherFawcettBooks.com.
Cambridge professor Emily Wilde is a genius scholar who is writing the world's first encyclopaedia of faerie lore. And Emily lives for her work: She emphatically prefers the company of her books, her dog, Shadow, and the Fair Folk to other people. So when she arrives in a hardscrabble village in the far north, Emily wishes only to focus on her studies. She certainly doesn't have time for another new arrival: her dashing and insufferably handsome academic rival Wendell Bambleby, who manages to charm the townsfolk, muddle Emily's research, and utterly confound and frustrate her. 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 why does he really want? To find the answer, she must unlock the greatest mystery of all—her own heart.
I'm a huge fan of Victorian literature, and so my first very positive note about this book is that it reads just like a Victorian lit novel—if faeries were real. It's written as a series of diary entries by titular character Emily Wilde, which sometimes includes collections of stories or even other people's diary notes. You very intimately get to know Emily—how her mind works, what her worldview is, how she operates in the field. In true Victorian lit fashion, the language of these diary entries is chosen with such care; I felt like I knew Emily's voice by the time I finished the novel, and I definitely didn't want to leave her behind.
The opposite of Emily in every way, Wendell Bambleby is such a fun character. He's absolutely brilliantly conceived, and I enjoyed so much that everything we know about him is filtered through Emily's perception. Their chemistry was off the charts, and I had to put the book down several times in order to digest. Bambley's voice also gets inserted into the narrative a few times, in very clever ways, and I loved the evolution of his and Emily's relationship. The novel is very character-driven, and by the end, I felt like I had spent a winter in their company, and that such growth could happen to people.
Fawcett's world building is top tier. This is a world where faeries are real, and objects of study for people like Emily. Emily is working towards being the top in her field and, like many book lovers, prefers her studies to people. After reading so much about Emily's research, I fully expected to be able to go outside and identify some faeries of my own. Thee fact that this research is occurring at a time that feels Victorian is a mighty plus—the only thing scholars have to depend on is their own notes and the papers of others. The internet doesn't exist, which allows for Emily to have to travel to a remote part of the world to do as much research as she can. I tend not to say things like "I could live in this world" when related to a book, because I often can't see myself surviving in them—but I would not hesitate to sign up to live in the world Fawcett created here.
I simply so excited for the release of the second book, Emily Wilde's Map of the Otherworlds, which is unfortunately all the way in January. But, I know that it will absolutely be well worth the wait. Until then, you can find Emily online at HeatherFawcettBooks.com.
*This review can also be found on my Goodreads page*
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