Emily Wilde, the Cambridge scholar and Dryadologist, celebrates the New Year in style. 1910 is ending and 1911 gets underway, in the latest episode of her rambling and studies through the lands of Faerie and earthly mountains. EMILY WILDE’S COMPENDIUM OF LOST TALES keeps this lady pretty busy.

Along with fellow scholar Wendell Bambleby, Emily first met the Fae in a Scandinavian land. Then it turned out that Wendell knew more than he’d been saying. I missed the second book, which was set in Austria, but by now we understand that Wendell is a long-lost heir to a throne in the faerie realm. Using a door in a rural Irish garden, they can come and go. The snag is that Wendell’s stereotypically wicked stepmother Queen Arna has placed a toxic curse upon the realm, so the trees are withering.

I always find with urban fantasy, that the first couple of books are about adventure, and then they turn into explanations of who gives orders to whom. At only the third book we’ve met that point. Does it matter? Well, it does if you start to forget whether you’re reading Emily Wilde or October Daye, or even Sookie Stackhouse. What distinguishes our dear lecturer is that she is so very scholarly, never forgetting to note observations, add footnotes, and append a list of rare volumes on local brownies and bogles. The early twentieth century doesn’t feature in this episode as much as in the first book, because largely we aren’t there, we’re in Faerie.

With a variety of inventive creatures, sounds and sights, Emily looks over the strangeness and wonder that makes the often scary otherworld. She and Wendell have a lot of problems to resolve, and they aren’t sure who can be trusted – or rather, they are sure most denizens cannot be trusted. While he’s a Cambridge professor, Wendell just about sheds all of that aspect, and his personality, which was often amusing, expands to fill his new role. He’s not as much fun anymore, but then, he’s almost a king of land where the trees have eyes and the head of the Royal Guard has sworn to kill usurpers, Wendell potentially included. 

Heather Fawcett must have enjoyed creating this series and has added a good dash of romance to her recipe. There’s a shock and a heart-stopping moment, but we never doubt that true love will prevail. EMILY WILDE’S COMPENDIUM OF LOST TALES follows many folklore tenets so the adventure often sounds like a fairytale we nearly know. The Emily Wilde series is a splendid guide to Faerieland.