Title: Emily Wilde’s Compendium of Lost Tales (Emily Wilde #3)
Author: Heather Fawcett
Publisher: Orbit 2025
Genre: Fantasy
Pages: 368
Rating: 4/5 stars
Reading Challenges: Cover Lover - Proper Noun in the Title
Emily Wilde has spent her life studying faeries. A renowned dryadologist, she has documented hundreds of species of Folk in her Encyclopaedia of Faeries. Now she is about to embark on her most dangerous academic project yet: studying the inner workings of a faerie realm—as its queen.
Along with her former academic rival—now fiancé—the dashing and mercurial Wendell Bambleby, Emily is immediately thrust into the deadly intrigues of Faerie as the two of them seize the throne of Wendell’s long-lost kingdom, which Emily finds a beautiful nightmare filled with scholarly treasures.
Emily has been obsessed with faerie stories her entire life, but at first she feels as ill-suited to Faerie as she did to the mortal world: How can an unassuming scholar such as herself pass for a queen? Yet there is little time to settle in, for Wendell’s murderous stepmother has placed a deadly curse upon the land before vanishing without a trace. It will take all of Wendell’s magic—and Emily’s knowledge of stories—to unravel the mystery before they lose everything they hold dear.
We come to the end of Emily Wilde’s storyline, and I really loved this quiet fantasy story. We pick up right where we left off from the second book. We spend most of our time in Faerie trying to understand Wendell’s realm and the dangers there. We get to met some interesting new characters and encounter old ones. We travel around Faerie while referencing so many stories and previous plot points. In general, I actually enjoyed the story. My one quibbling point about this book is the narration. At points, the narration becomes very dry and the story lags. But there is a minor point of issue. Overall, I really loved this series as an antidote to fast-paced fantasy.
Emily Wilde
#3 Compendium of Lost Tales
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