Review: The Emily Wilde Series
The series accompanying me as I transitioned from 2024 to 2025 was The Emily Wilde Series by Heather Fawcett. Only two books are available at this time— Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries and Emily Wilde’s Map of the Otherlands— but a third book is set to release February 11, 2025. The series falls within the fantasy romance genre, often called romantasy, which has grown in popularity since the COVID era.
I started this series because I was looking for a light book to read over the holiday season and mostly because the people of r/romantasy on Reddit suggest it over and over. My expectations were mid-level. I anticipated something similar to the ACOTAR series because both deal with faeries (Side Note: I’m using this spelling because it is the spelling in Emily Wilde, though I don’t know enough about linguistics to say what distinguishes it from other spellings). I was very surprised as I started the series and found it was nothing like I expected, and it had less romance and a lot more faerie lore and character development.
The series follows titular protagonist Emily Wilde, who is a Cambridge scholar and professor of “Drydadology,” or the study of faerie folklore. The novels are written as journal accounts, as Emily works on different research projects across the world. In book one, she works on an encyclopedia of all faeries, which takes her to a remote village on the island Ljosland to study their faeries. In book two, she seeks to complete a map of the “Otherlands,” or the faerie realm, as well as assist her friend Wendell with finding a portal to his realm. Both books follow Emily’s daily activities and experiences as well as her thoughts and feelings (sort of).
Encyclopaedia of Faeries
In book one of this series, Emily sets out alone to Hrafnsvik, a village on a fictional island, Ljosland, off the coast of Norway. She seeks information about the type of fae that lives in this area in order to complete her encyclopedia, which she sees as the pinnacle of her academic career.
Our protagonist is the classic closed-off academic, who prioritizes science and rationality above emotion. She struggles at first to make bonds with the townspeople and even offends the chief woman in their society by rejecting her hospitality. Emily assumes people will see her as a burden, and she keeps to herself in an effort not to impede on their lives in addition to finding socializing difficult. Of course, as the novel progresses, she becomes more in touch with her feelings and even makes friends with the townspeople. Her character growth is central to the novel, and like the people in the novel, I found, with time, her cold exterior melted.
I have complex feelings about Emily Wilde as a character. At first, I was thinking, “Oh great, another female main character who dislikes emotion and is too smart for her own good.” It’s common in fantasy especially that women are written as strong, intelligent warriors, and unfortunately, some authors assume being those things means these characters can’t also be intuitive, social, and emotional. Emily Wilde felt a bit like this to me, but with her growth in both books, she became a lot more likable. I also think the style of the novel is an asset and an obstacle for her characterization. Her journal is specifically for noting her research style and scientific discoveries, so, of course, she is cold and detached. She doesn’t ramble or fret within the journal, which bolsters her characterization as a rational academic.
However, the relationships she develops in the novel warm her as a character. She makes friends with two girls, who she saved from the faerie realm. Putting herself in danger to save them, Emily proves her kindness and care for others, though she claims she also did it for research. I wondered if these self-effacing asides, which she makes a few times, were meant to show Emily’s discomfort at building connections and socializing. Whatever she means by them, it shows how she is realistic and has nuanced motivations like any other person.
Though she doesn’t consider him a friend at first, the person she is closest to is another scholar at Cambridge, Wendell Bambleby. He appears in Hrafnsvik one day with two research assistants, much to Emily’s chagrin as she prefers to work alone, but she finds his charm invaluable to getting the assistance of the townspeople. And of course because it’s a romance, she falls in love with him.
Now, I’m going to take the blame for this. I think I wasn’t paying very close attention when Wendell was introduced because I just assumed he was an older, gray-haired, wise academic who would become the Giles to Emily’s Buffy. Imagine my shock when hints of their attraction to each other were being dropped in the novel! I thought, “Wait a minute, I must’ve missed something.” Despite Wendell’s effortless charm, at no point did I think they were getting together.
Due to Emily’s aloof journal entries, when Wendell proposes to her, I was as shocked as she was and very, very confused. By this point, the reader knows that Wendell is a member of the courtly fae, a king who was exiled by his stepmother. The novel portrays Wendell as fickle and changeable, true to descriptions of the fae. He holds different morals and beliefs than Emily and other humans. Still, his proposal felt out of place to me. They hadn’t even kissed! In the first book especially, their relationship lacked chemistry.
If I could go back in time and change this series, Emily and Wendell would remain friends and coworkers for the first two to three books. They would build their chemistry and relationship as friends, and ideally, their romance would develop in a friends to lovers style over multiple books. It’s just not believable as it stands now, and the reader lacks the story background to care much about their relationship. Wendell’s marriage proposal to Emily, which comes about halfway through the first book, feels so whacky and out of place because we know nothing about their friendship. It then hangs over the entire second half of the novel and into the second book. Fawcett had so much to work with both with Emily’s academic work and with her emotional growth. I wish the romance had been left out of this first book completely.
With all that being said, this book was very intriguing to me when it came to the faerie lore and to Emily’s work as a scholar. The strongest aspect of this novel is how much information Fawcett includes about different folktales. She invents scholars, articles, and books for Emily to reference throughout her journal. I was wishing they were all real. Emily’s commitment to her work kindles readers’ interest and makes us wish we could uncover the mysteries with her. Her research drives the narrative, and Fawcett’s faerie world feels very tangible and real.
Map of the Otherlands
The second novel in this series begins with Emily back at Cambridge, now tenured, after the success of her encyclopedia. She is working on a map of the faerie realm as her next project, but she also seeks to find a portal to Wendell’s kingdom, so that he may return home. She still hasn’t decided whether she wants to marry Wendell, but she puts endless hours into helping him, especially because his stepmother is now sending assassins after him. This goal leads them to the Alps, where a supposed nexus, a doorway to everywhere in Faerie, exists. Their search coincides with the discovery of two lost scholars, Bran Eichorn and Danielle De Grey, who are myths in the Drydadology field for disappearing, presumably lost to the faerie realm or killed. The book continues in Emily’s journal accounts and in the same scientific style as the first novel.
I preferred this book to the first. I was more ingrained in Emily’s world and way of looking at things, and I came to like her a bit more than in the first book. In the first book, she feels more detached and almost abrasive, but her growth is noticeable in the second book. She admits more to her faults and mistakes, and the novel explores her mental spirals about how she feels and what she wants. She is still the same intelligent, focused, and rational main character readers expect, but she has a bit more depth.
I also felt like the second book developed her and Wendell’s relationship a lot. I still wish they were on their friends to lovers journey with some light flirting and attraction culminating in this book. However, I liked the direction of their relationship here. Wendell spends most of the book ill and weak from a poisoning, which forces Emily to face the fact that she is afraid to lose him. It’s a classic trope, but it added layers to their relationship. In addition, in this book as well as the first, Wendell is adamant that he likes Emily for who she is, especially because of her impersonal outlook and mundane lifestyle. He is devoted to her, which developed their spark a bit more.
Along with her relationship with Wendell, this book introduces two new characters: Emily’s niece Ariadne and the department chair Farris Rose, both of whom accompany Emily and Wendell on their journey to the nexus. Ariadne serves as a foil to Emily. She’s as intelligent and capable as Emily, but she makes friends easily with the local people. Emily’s lack of social skills is a major component of her characterization, and despite her field skills and successes, she still believes the people she encounters won’t like her or be kind to her. Ariadne’s connection to the local village girls emphasizes this point and makes Emily’s struggle more apparent. While she is more social, Ariadne is also more fearful because of her youth and lack of experience. Ariadne’s fear similarly highlights how brave and confident Emily is. Emily encounters terrors and challenges, but she always pushes forward and does what she believes is right for herself and for the research. Ariadne’s character emphasizes Emily’s failings and her strengths in this book.
In Farris Rose, we get the Giles figure that I assumed Wendell was in the first book. Rose is well-established and very educated in Drydadology. He begins the novel accusing Wendell of falsifying papers, but he soon discovers that Wendell is a faerie himself, and Rose gets swept up into their quest. Rose becomes the figure who offers Emily advice, sometimes unsolicited, and who keeps her grounded to human reality. He dislikes her relationship with Wendell and makes it known to her multiple times that the fae are fickle creatures who cannot be trusted. Rose acts as an opposing voice to Emily for the reader. He offers good opinions, but remains controversial because we see the world through Emily. However, I thought he added to Emily’s characterization and helped her develop and grow in this novel.
Once again, the plot and the folklore was my favorite part of the book. Fawcett makes it so easy to believe all of the lore she introduces. She creates a world that feels real rather than just a story, and it makes me think there’s a universe out there where this is all happening. The finding of the nexus, which conveniently connects all the different faerie realms, didn’t feel like a plot excuse, but the result of the hard work and knowledge of our main character. I also believed all the faeries that Fawcett creates. They have unique personalities, and she introduces so much background through Emily and the sources Emily references, so I understand how they are different from each other and from our human characters. Emily’s faerie world is the main focus of these novels, beyond the romance.
I did enjoy these books quite a bit, though it took me some time to fully get into it and to like our protagonist. I think Emily’s likability develops as she is challenged and forced to grow. I enjoy having a main character who is mature and capable, but I wish she was a bit more forthcoming with the reader about her thoughts and feelings, especially in the first book. The second book shows a lot of progress in that area. I also, like I’ve mentioned a couple times, would much rather the romance get the classic slow burn, multi-book arc that I generally tend to prefer. I think Wendell is such an enigma in both books, though more in the first for me, and I have a hard time seeing why she or the readers are swooning for him. Development of their friendship before a relationship would have added greatly to their journey as separate characters and as a couple.
Overall, I’m giving the series 3.75 stars for right now. I will definitely read the subsequent books in this series, but it’s too early to tell if it will be a favorite!