If you have been reading my reviews, you know that I absolutely love this series, and book three doesn’t disappoint.
The Emily Wilde series isn’t my normal fare. Yes, it’s about the Fae, and yes, it does have some degree of mayhem and danger, but it falls dangerously close to historical fiction, and even more dangerously close to Romantasy which I have a love/hate relationship with.
Regardless, I find Ms. Fawcett’s writing quaint and comfortable.
The series is the continuing adventures of renowned dryadologist Emily Wilde and her very complicated fiancé, Wendell Bambleby.
If you’ve made it this far in the series, then you know that the dashing Wendell is a ruler of the High Faerie with a long lost kingdom. The events of this book involve Emily and Wendell returning to his kingdom and taking control of it from his very wicked stepmother who has placed a curse upon the land.
One of the things I love about Ms. Fawcett’s writing style with this series is that she presents it as a series of journal entries from Emily’s perspective. This, for my preference, makes it very easy to pick up and put down the book without having to back-track for context (an annoying habit of mine). Plus, I can’t resist a good footnote.
The worldbuilding is absolutely top notch, and very much enhanced by the magical foibles of Wendell. If Wendell doesn’t want to spend all day climbing up a mountain, he magics it away. The mercurial nature of the land of Faerie also plays a very large role in establishing how in flux the landscape really is. There are allusions to various tribes and species of Fae that we never meet, along with a plethora of strange creatures that we do. Don’t even get me started on the apparent war with, and fear of, the trees.
Pick up this series. It’s fun, semi-relaxing (until it isn’t), and a very well written tale that stays very much on a semi-academic path with a wide variety of madcap adventure.