Emily Wilde's Compendium of Lost Tales

Emily Wilde's Compendium of Lost Tales by Heather Fawcett | 368 pages | 2025

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.

(Synopsis taken from Goodreads)

We had all the classic elements of an Emily Wilde book: sweet friendships, creative world-building, creepy faeries, and lots of time with our favorite scholar, Emily. Bonus points for the starring role of our dear Shadow, especially at the end. I also enjoyed the introduction of the mortal characters in Faerie. The author did a great job of seamlessly reminding the readers what happened in previous books without rehashing too much. The "journal entries" in this one got a little more personal and less academic, which I enjoyed. It's necessary for the story being told in this book, and I think it shows some growth for Emily as well, to allow a softer side in her writings.

My only complaint is that I'm still not totally convinced that Emily and Wendell love each other. I think maybe that stems from Emily's nature to be less romantic, and since we spend almost all of our time in Emily's POV the natural consequence is that the romance takes a backseat. On the occasions that she lets her feelings show, she says all the right things, but love feels more like an afterthought than a key touchstone of Emily's life. The story still works, and the lesser role of the romance may actually work well for a lot of readers.

ARC provided by Netgalley and Random House, with my thanks.