A prickly professor travels to a Scandinavian village to study the faerie but finds adventure instead in the whimsical, romantic fantasy Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries, the first adult novel from Canadian author Heather Fawcett (The School Between Winter and Fairyland; Even the Darkest Stars). Cambridge professor Emily Wilde has devoted herself to compiling a comprehensive encyclopaedia of all known species of faerie. She plans to spend her time in tiny, far-flung Hrafnsvik collecting stories about the local faerie folk from the townsfolk. She is soon joined by uninvited coworker Wendell Bambleby, "my dearest friend, which is only true in the sense that he is my sole friend." Emily is a brilliant and thorough researcher, but her indifference to social cues offends the locals, while handsome, lazy Bambleby charms them. As Emily gathers sources, she makes a deal with a brownie, becomes embroiled in the misfortunes of a family with a changeling child and sets a dangerous enchantment in motion when she finds a fairy tree. The mysteries pile up, but the greatest secret of all belongs to irritating, beguiling Bambleby, whose true motivation for following Emily will upend her life.
This funny, imaginative romp presents a fairy realm filled with wonder and delight, and Fawcett avoids making her subject too twee. The fairy creatures here display the blend of nonsensical logic and cruelty that is endemic to older, unsanitized folklore. Cantankerous, erudite Emily and devil-may-care, swoon-inducing Bambleby are an endearing example of opposites attracting. Here's hoping for more of their adventures. --Jaclyn Fulwood, blogger at Infinite Reads