A strong second outing for a well-built world and an interesting, strangely well-matched pair of lovers.
The second in a series chronicling the adventures of an English dryadologist—an academic studying faeries—in an alternate Europe.
Emily Wilde has refused the marriage proposal of her former academic rival, Wendell Bambleby, because she would be mad to marry a deposed faerie king disguised as a human. But she has devoted herself to finding a door into his kingdom, which would allow him to take back the realm stolen from him by his stepmother. Emily’s quest takes her to the isolated Alpine village of St. Liesl, accompanied by Wendell and two unexpected companions: Emily’s niece Ariadne, an aspiring dryadologist, and Farris Pole, the prickly head of the Dryadology Department, who blackmailed Emily into including him. Much of the plot follows the outline of the previous volume, Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries (2023): Emily and her cohort stay in a guesthouse; everyone but Emily manages to befriend the locals (she's hopeless at social niceties); Emily encourages hikes into the countryside, where they have perilous encounters with the local faeries; and Emily’s determination leads her to behave rashly, endangering everyone's lives, until her cleverness and intuitive understanding of faerie behavior allow her to triumph. But Emily’s adventures remain entertaining, thanks to the neurodivergent heroine whose blunt behavior and affinity for peculiar logic present a problem when interacting with humans but prove an asset with faeries. This book also offers new emotional depths for Emily, who struggles with her growing but potentially life-threatening love for Wendell, unexpected affection for her niece, and fraught relationship with Farris Pole. Now that she has people to care about, the previously solitary young woman has to reckon even more closely with the consequences of her behavior and how it affects those around her. Emily feels like a character worth following; hopefully the next installment shakes up the format a little.
A strong second outing for a well-built world and an interesting, strangely well-matched pair of lovers.Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2024
ISBN: 9780593500194
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Del Rey
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Doesn’t entirely hang together but still manages to hit the spot.
In an alternate early-20th-century Montreal, sparks fly between the operator of a cat shelter and a reclusive magician.
Agnes Aubert is not kindly disposed toward magicians, especially not after a magical duel blows a hole in the building that housed her and her cat shelter. Unfortunately, finding another spot isn’t easy, so she’s happy to take the reasonably priced location on the Rue des Hirondelles. But that’s before she discovers the building’s owner secretly living in the basement: Havelock Renard, the world’s most powerful magician, who also happens to be allergic to cats. As this decidedly odd couple work out a system for cohabitation, Agnes develops some uncomfortable feelings for Havelock; she also can’t deny her attraction to the police detective who thinks (not entirely incorrectly) that the shelter is a front for the illegal sale of magical Artefacts. In comparison to the carefully constructed universe of her Emily Wildeseries, Fawcett’s worldbuilding and plotting are a bit sloppy; the magical system is not laid out as clearly as more pedantic readers might wish, and there’s one part of Agnes’ quandary that gets resolved in a rushed, not truly believable, way. The book also implausibly suggests that an allergy to cats is curable by exposure (rather than managed by a magical antihistamine, perhaps?). But one has to admire the author’s acumen in finding the absolute sweet spot for a cozy fantasy, after all the other ones set in cafes and adorable little shops. It could seem either twee or a cynical grab at the market, but it’s neither; Fawcett clearly understands the complicated but rewarding relationship between humans and cats. It is also charming to set a story in Montreal, where both brioches and bagels are on offer.
Doesn’t entirely hang together but still manages to hit the spot.Pub Date: Feb. 17, 2026
ISBN: 9780593973257
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Del Rey
Review Posted Online: Nov. 8, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Although the melodrama sometimes is a bit much, the superb worldbuilding and intricate plotline make this a must-read.
Using mystery and romance elements in a nonlinear narrative, SenLinYu’s debut is a doorstopper of a fantasy that follows a woman with missing memories as she navigates through a war-torn realm in search of herself.
Helena Marino is a talented young healer living in Paladia—the “Shining City”—who has been thrust into a brutal war against an all-powerful necromancer and his army of Undying, loyal henchmen with immortal bodies, and necrothralls, reanimated automatons. When Helena is awakened from stasis, a prisoner of the necromancer’s forces, she has no idea how long she has been incarcerated—or the status of the war. She soon finds herself a personal prisoner of Kaine Ferron, the High Necromancer’s “monster” psychopath who has sadistically killed hundreds for his master. Ordered to recover Helena’s buried memories by any means necessary, the two polar opposites—Helena and Kaine, healer and killer—end up discovering much more as they begin to understand each other through shared trauma. While necromancy is an oft-trod subject in fantasy novels, the author gives it a fresh feel—in large part because of their superb worldbuilding coupled with unforgettable imagery throughout: “[The necromancer] lay reclined upon a throne of bodies. Necrothralls, contorted and twisted together, their limbs transmuted and fused into a chair, moving in synchrony, rising and falling as they breathed in tandem, squeezing and releasing around him…[He] extended his decrepit right hand, overlarge with fingers jointed like spider legs.” Another noteworthy element is the complex dynamic between Helena and Kaine. To say that these two characters shared the gamut of intense emotions would be a vast understatement. Readers will come for the fantasy and stay for the romance.
Although the melodrama sometimes is a bit much, the superb worldbuilding and intricate plotline make this a must-read.Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2025
ISBN: 9780593972700
Page Count: 1040
Publisher: Del Rey
Review Posted Online: July 17, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2025
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