Thumbs up for Emily Wilde’s Encyclopedia of Faeries by Heather Fawcett. Historical fantasy.
Emily Wilde, a not particularly charming professor of Dryadology, is in “Ljosland” to research the final section of her Encyclopedia of Faeries. Her attempt at pure research is instantly thwarted by her inability to make friends with the locals, and then by the arrival of her academic rival, the dashing Wendall Bambleby. An enjoyable quick read, not particularly cozy, quite low on the romance; the excellent Faerie lore footnotes are a clear nod to Susannah Clarke. The writing was good, but honestly what impressed me most was the fact that I didn’t see where the story was going; and, when it got there, all the bits made sense. I am hard to surprise, so well done.
Instantly, I understood. The creature I had seen in the window had not been a wight at all. It had been a changeling. I have never known a changeling in manner so like a wight, neither in the course of my own research nor in the literature. Changelings are monstrous offspring produced by the courtly fae, weak and sickly creatures who bring misfortune upon a household for as long as they remain there, but they are not vicious or malevolent. My interest in this place grew by the moment, and I was pleased that I had brought my notebook.
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