Review: Emily Wilde's Compendium of Lost Tales, by Heather Fawcett

Title: Emily Wilde's Compendium of Lost Tales

Author: Heather Fawcett

Publisher: Orbit

Date of Publication: February 11th 2025

Number of Pages: 368

See it on Goodreads: Emily Wilde's Compendium of Lost Tales

Summary

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 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 could an unassuming scholar like herself pass for a queen? Yet there is little time to settle in-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.

Review - An Academic in a Faerie Court

Few books this year made me wait anxiously for their publication, and "Emily Wilde's Compendium of Lost Tales" was one of them. And let me tell you - it did not disappoint! The third installment of the Emily Wilde series concludes the trilogy, so I'm also happy that I got to finish one book series so early in the year. Now that I've read all three books, I can say that the last one is my favourite Emily Wilde installment, even though this might be an unpopular opinion.

The story of the book begins a few months after the events of book 2, "Emily Wilde’s Map of the Otherlands". Emily and Wendell travel to the Silva Lupi so that Wendell can claim the throne, now that it is vacant. However, they soon notice that Wendell's stepmother has put a curse on the kingdom, one that threatens to destroy it. So, once again, Emily uses her scholarly knowledge and deep understanding of the fearie stories to find a way to lift it. I have to say that the story took turns that were much darker compared to the previous installments, and I simply couldn't stop listening to the audiobook.

This book focuses heavily on Emily's character. Firstly, as Wendell's wife, she becomes a queen of the faerie, a role that is the polar opposite of her character. We see her try to fit in her new role by acting and looking the part, even though she doesn't feel comfortable. By the end though, not only she emerges as very competent for her role, but the folk actually accept her as their royalty. 

In addition to this, Emily also has to deal with the curse. I won't spoil the book, so I'm only going to say that we don't get as much Emily and Wendell action as in the previous books. For me, I didn't really mind, as I really like Emily's approach. I love how the stories of the folk directly shape the faerie realms, a thing that only gets even better by the extensive lore behind the series. 

My main critic of the "Emily Wilde's Compendium of Lost Tales" is the lack of side characters. Of course, there are numerous of them that appear throughout the book, but only for a brief time. I would have liked to see Emily have a sidekick, just like Ariadne was in the previous installment. In fact, I was hoping we would get more of Ariadne in this book, since I really liked her character. Instead, we only get Emily and Shadow alone.

But having said that, I just have to admit that listening to this book, to the whole series actually, is such a delightful experience. I like to read my cozy fantasies on audiobook and really get lost in the worlds and stories. Emily Wilde is the perfect series to do just that, even with the footnotes (which are much fewer in book 3). I recognize that it has flaws to its plot and pacing, but when I was listening to it, I didn't really notice because I was having a good time. 

All in all, I'm very happy that I've read the whole trilogy. Emily Wilde is one of my favourite cozy fantasy series, and it has been an amazing journey listening to it. If you've already read the previous installments, then you should definitely ready "Emily Wilde's Compendium of Lost Tales". If you haven't read the first one yet, I would urge you to pick it up already!

Read more of my reviews here.