** This book was provided to me by NetGalley in exchange for a fair and honest review **
I’m not sure what it is about Ms. Fawcett’s Emily Wilde books that just make me stop everything else and rabidly consume them, but she is two for two, so far, in getting my full attention.
Emily Wilde is a dryadologist from Cambridge who, seemingly, is quickly becoming a pioneer in her field just through pure tenacity and grit. In her previous adventure, Professor Wilde managed to get herself betrothed to a Fae of the Winter realms, and, through help of fellow scholar Wendell Bambleby, escaped.
In this next chapter, Emily is working on a sort of atlas of the faerie lands when she and Bambleby learn that Bambleby’s step-mother is trying to have him killed. If you haven’t read the first book, then you don’t know that Wendell Bambleby is actually a faerie king in exile, and quite besotted with one Miss Emily Wilde.
In order to set things straight, Wendell and Emily must find one of the many doors to Wendell’s former realm, and attempt to set things straight with dearest step-mother before anyone ends up deceased prematurely.
this plan, Emily and Wendell plan to set out to the Austrian Alps to do this, but are interrupted in their plans by an attack by assassins at Cambridge in front of their department head — Dr. Rose — and Emily’s niece/assistant: Ariadne.
Now this quad is all set to head to the Alps to find this doorway: a simple plan when anyone else but Emily and Wendell would be involved.
Needless to say, there are a ton of mysteries, a wide variety of Fair Folk, some mystery, some intrigue, a wee bit of violence, and even a smattering of romance.
Ms. Fawcett is just extraordinary at building amazing world of both the fantastic and mundane, and she flexes that muscle liberally in this gem. I quite literally consumed over half this novel in one overnight session while sitting in a cabin in the woods, and it was perfection.
One of the things that makes this book so approachable is that it puts the reader in a very comfortable spot to observe what is happening without being condescending or trite. Yes, this novel has a ton of footnotes in what can only be described as one of the most endearing traits that Emily has in attempting to separate the academic from the real, and the bluntness adds a degree of humor that I greatly appreciate.
I, for one, cannot wait for the further adventures of Emily and Wendell. Hopefully I won’t have to wait long.