Emily Wilde's Map of the Otherlands

Emily Wilde's Map of the Otherlands by Heather Fawcett | 369 pages | 2024

Emily Wilde is a genius scholar of faerie folklore who just wrote the world’s first comprehensive encyclopaedia of faeries. She’s learned many of the secrets of the Hidden Ones on her adventures, and also from her fellow scholar and former rival Wendell Bambleby. Because Bambleby is more than infuriatingly charming. He’s an exiled faerie king on the run from his murderous mother and in search of a door back to his realm. And despite Emily’s feelings for Bambleby, she’s not ready to accept his proposal of marriage: Loving one of the Fair Folk comes with secrets and dangers.

She also has a new project to focus on: a map of the realms of faerie. While she is preparing her research, Bambleby lands her in trouble yet again, when assassins sent by his mother invade Cambridge. Now Bambleby and Emily are on another adventure, this time to the picturesque Austrian Alps, where Emily believes they may find the door to Bambleby’s realm and the key to freeing him from his family’s dark plans.

(Synopsis taken from Goodreads)

This second installment in the series adds some new characters, as well as hearkening back to some of the most charming relationships formed in the first book. I loved the references to Emily's friendship with Lilja, and the opportunities for little Poe to help save the day again. The addition of Emily's helpful and capable niece Ariadne and the curmudgeonly Professor Rose really rounded out the cast of characters. As in the first book, the author shows a wealth of creativity mixed with research as she introduces new faeries and delves even further into the faerie realms. 

Somehow this book manages to mix the "cozy fantasy" genre with a little bit of horror, since the story is warm and quirky but most of the faeries are decidedly not. I'm looking forward to diving into an advance copy of the final book soon!