Rating: 4.5 stars
Spoiler warning! There will be some spoilers in this review for the first book in the series, so if you're not caught up, stop what you're doing and go read Emily Wilde's Encyclopedia of Faeries immediately. This review will be here when you return.
Emily Wilde is back at her university in Cambridge, pleased with the success of her Faerie Encyclopedia. The proposal from her best friend Wendell Bambleby is still something she needs to consider, but after having her suspicions confirmed, that he isn't just a faerie, but a Faerie King gives her pause. Usually, nothing good happens to humans who get romantically involved with the Fey. She's determined to help him find a door back to his kingdom, though, and this is what most of her current research focuses on, when she's not working on her comprehensive map of the realms of Faerie.
Sadly, Bambleby's true identity wasn't just revealed to Emily, but to a whole host of villagers back in Hrafnavik as well. Now it seems the information is spreading, and his wicked stepmother, who usurped his throne and exiled him is sending assassins after him. Emily decides they need to get proactive about locating a back door to his kingdom, so they can stop his stepmother once and for all. This involves another journey, this time to the village of St. Liesl in the Austrian Alps, where several Faerie researchers are rumoured to have gone missing in the past. Along for the journey is Emily's niece Ariadne, who also wants to be a Faerie scholar, as well as Farris Rose, the head of Dryadology at Cambridge, who has pretty much blackmailed his way onto the expedition, threatening to have both Wendell and Emily discredited for falsifying sources for their academic publications (very much true in Wendell's case, very much not in Emily's).
Will Professor Rose survive the dangerous expedition he has strongarmed his way onto? Will Wendell persuade Emily to actually be his wife? Will Emily manage to locate a door back to his kingdom? Will they manage to stop his wicked stepmother and counteract the poison affecting Wendell so that he and Emily even have a future together?
I may have actually uttered an unladylike squeal of joy when I discovered this book on a shelf in the Waterstones in Morpeth (the English town where my parents-in-law live). I had seen on Heather Fawcett's Instagram that some UK readers got their pre-orders delivered early and some bookshops had received early deliveries of the book but never dared to hope that I was going to be lucky enough to go to one of those stores. Was I planning on buying this in hardback? No, now it doesn't go with my pretty paperback at all. Is the Norwegian kroner at a record low to the British pound (I seriously can't remember it being this bad for literal decades)? Absolutely. Did I snatch the book up and buy it anyway? Of course, I did! The book doesn't officially release until January 16th and I've wanted to read it pretty much since I finished book 1. There wasn't even a question in my mind.
Did it live up to my expectations? Yes, I am glad to say. I think I like it even better than the first book, even though it was a bit slow in parts and meanders a bit. I also wasn't as interested in the subplot about the missing scholars, but YMMV. Emily and Wendell are a delight together, and I liked that while Wendell had to rescue Emily in the first book, she was very much the rescuer here, even at the risk of her own safety and sanity. I don't know how many books Ms. Fawcett is planning for the series, but I was very happy to see that there will be at least one more book before I have to say goodbye to the characters. This was a really lovely book to finish off my reviewing year.
Judging a book by its cover: Isn't this just the prettiest thing? The green is one of my favourite shades and the flowers and mushrooms and little items are so delicate and dainty. It also complements the colours of book 1 beautifully.
Crossposted on Cannonball Read
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