Happy Monday, everyone! Today I'm thrilled to be part of the Compulsive Readers tour for Heather Fawcett's latest, Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries. (First in a new series!)
Emily Wilde is young and determined. And also a bit fusty, with a preference for keeping to herself. But absolutely nothing will keep her from learning and documenting as much as she can about the world's fairy folk.
Which is how she finds herself in the small village of Hrafnsvik. Here she hopes to find evidence of a folk unique to the area. But while she immediately befriends a tree brownie, she clumsily insults the head of the village, leaving her on the outs until her maddening and unwelcome colleague, Wendell Bambleby, arrives.
Wendell is nothing but supportive and, in truth, wins over the very people Emily put off fairly quickly. But as Emily becomes entwined in the village's issues with the fair folk, she makes more and more trouble for herself. Having Bambleby along proves to be fortuitous in many ways, but Emily has her suspicions about the man and his motives.
This book was an utter delight!
Told in the form of Emily's journal during her research trip, the book is at once driven by Emily's wonderful voice and truly enchanting world building!
As I mentioned, Emily is a bit...set in her ways. She's not overly social, she doesn't do particularly well with groups of people, and she acknowledges that she has a terrible habit of putting her foot in her mouth. Which she does immediately and with no clue how or what to do to put things right.
But she is brilliant in the field, has an excellent memory for fairy lore, and proves that she can think quick on her feet in implementing that lore in real life when dealing with the fair folk.
Which might be why Wendell obviously finds her charming company. And much as Emily hates to admit it, it's clear that she not only views Wendell as a friend, but that he's likely the only one she really has.
As I mentioned, because this is told in journals, Emily is our narrator (most of the time) and the character we get to know best. And I adore her! I see myself in her, to be honest, an introvert who's happiest with books!
I had the extreme pleasure of listening to this one on audio, narrated by Ell Potter and Michael Dodds. Potter is absolutely perfect as Emily, giving literal voice to our narrator (and offering pronunciations things I would have butchered in my head otherwise).
Like I said, this was a genuine delight. A completely charming book that has left me anxiously awaiting whatever comes next for our intrepid academics!
Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries is out now in the UK and in the US!
No comments:
Post a Comment