• Author: Heather Fawcett
• Series: Emily Wilde #1
• Genre: Historical Romantasy
• No. of pages: 336
• Dates read: 15.07.2023 – 17.07.2023
• Star Rating: 4 stars

Plot: Cambridge professor Emily Wilde is good at many things: She is the foremost expert on the study of faeries. She is a genius scholar and a meticulous researcher who is writing the world’s first encyclopaedia of faerie lore. But Emily Wilde is not good at people. She could never make small talk at a party–or even get invited to one. And she prefers the company of her books, her dog, Shadow, and the Fair Folk to other people. So when she arrives in the hardscrabble village of Hrafnsvik, Emily has no intention of befriending the gruff townsfolk. Nor does she care to spend time with another new arrival: her dashing and insufferably handsome academic rival Wendell Bambleby, who manages to charm the townsfolk, get in the middle of Emily’s research, and utterly confound and frustrate her. But as Emily gets closer and closer to uncovering the secrets of the Hidden Ones–the most elusive of all faeries–lurking in the shadowy forest outside the town, she also finds herself on the trail of another mystery: Who is Wendell Bambleby, and what does he really want? To find the answer, she’ll have to unlock the greatest mystery of all–her own heart.

Romantasy is all the hype nowadays. Especially on TikTok and I have only dabbled a little bit into the subgenre. I read a recent Scarlett St. Clair book which I was not a fan of so I wanted to read something else. I went straight from a super smutty story to a slow-burn, I think they kiss once, book.

If you love a good whimsical, character -focused slow burn romantasy book then look no further than Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Fairies. I had this sitting on my shelf for quite some time waiting for the right moment to pick it up.

I want to start off and say one of the biggest highlights of this book for me was the way it is written. I love when books follow a different format to just prose on a page. And this book is treated half as a diary and half as a collection of field notes. I found it to be a super engaging way to tell a story. I felt that while reading I was also learning loads. There were so many super interesting, lore-building footnotes just dotted throughout the book. I was just a super fun reading experience not just the words but the formatting.

The setting was amazing. We are having a pretty dreary summer at the moment in England and this book plus the weather made me feel that I was in late autumn. This book transports you to its setting from the first page. Through the writing I could feel the bite of the winter breeze and I felt that despite it being a harsh landscape Fawcett made me want to live and work there! I was shocked at first that the book was set in a very cold and wintery setting expecting a more floral and spring-like setting but I really enjoyed exploring with Emily and meeting/interacting with the townspeople.

In terms of the romance itself, like I said it is very slow-burn. I would say I am definitely more of a fast-paced romance girl. This story was just a tad too slow burn for me. While I liked the characters and their dynamic I just wanted a bit more from them. I also felt that we weren’t given enough instances, of realising as an reader, that they liked each other. I just needed more. I needed more written evidence because it came out of the blue for a me a little a bit with the confession.