Something you may not know about me is that I was big into faerie lore in my late teens and early 20s. I received a copy of that Brian Froud and Alan Lee Faeries book as a gift and it was all over for me. My used copy of Katharine Briggs’ An Encyclopedia of Fairies remains one of my treasured possessions, a good 25 years since I first purchased it. So of course I pounced on last year’s Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries when it came out last year, and I liked it enough to pick up the sequel this year.
I’m not going to talk a lot about the details of this book, Emily Wilde’s Map of the Otherlands by Heather Fawcett, because that would involve spoiling certain things about the first book, and I’d really like you to consider reading that if you haven’t already. Let me list off some of the things the series so far has going for it:
- Faeries inspired by the actual folklore. I can’t even tell if any of them are wholly made up, or if they’re just lesser-known types I hadn’t read about or which I have forgotten about over the past couple decades.
- A prickly heroine who is probably on the spectrum and actually is bad with people, but who tries to be better.
- A love interest who will not let you harm a hair on her head, but isn’t broody or growly and feels like a very unique personality among book boyfriends.
- Relationships that actually grow and change, at a believable pace.
- One very good dog.
Over all, I find the books well-written, well-paced, and populated by delightful side characters and picturesque settings. They’re definitely going for that Memoirs of Lady Trent vibe, but with faeries instead of dragons… that said, Emily is a very different character from Lady Trent, aside from their shared intellectual curiosity, so don’t go in expecting it to feel exactly the same.
I’m not sure how long this series is expected to be. Book two teased that the story would be “continued in Book 3”. The fact that it says continued, not concluded, makes me think it’s going to be longer than a trilogy, but the fact that big events happened in Book 2 would suggest that this is a story with a definite arc and won’t be dragged out forever. Maybe a tetralogy?
TWs and CWs: Fantasy violence and illness. The bedroom activities take place behind closed doors.
Format and Source: I read this as an ebook from Sno-Isle Libraries.
Book Bingo Prompts
Brick & Mortar: Set in a place you’d want to travel. We’ve already established I’m a faerie geek. If the Otherlands were real, I’d absolutely want to explore them. Of course, I like to pretend I’d be an intrepid field researcher like Emily Wilde, but deep down I know my experience would be more like this recent Sarah’s Scribbles comic.
Current Bingo Challenge Progress
Nook & Cranny (Card 1): 5 out of 25 prompts complete. 0 bingos.
Nook & Cranny (Card 2): 3 out of 25 prompts complete. 0 bingos.
Brick & Mortar: 13 out of 25 prompts complete. 1 bingo.