A prickly scholar of faeries and her infuriatingly charming academic rival are stranded in a northern village full of the Folk.
- Score
- 80.3
- Spice
- 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️Sweet
- POV
- first
- Ending
- HEA / HFN
Tropes
Content warnings
Curated signals, not an exhaustive guarantee.
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What readers think
Readers consistently praise the book's unique cozy-yet-sinister atmosphere and Emily herself — a neurodivergent-coded, socially awkward scholar whose dry wit and single-minded obsession with faerie research make her one of the most distinctive protagonists in recent fantasy. The grumpy-sunshine rivals dynamic with Wendell is widely described as charming and well-earned, with banter that crackles without tipping into cruelty. The journal/field-notes narrative structure earns near-universal appreciation for its immersive period voice and wry scholarly asides. The most common criticism is pacing: events are often recounted in past tense after the fact, which can make exciting scenes feel at arm's length, and the ending resolves somewhat abruptly after a leisurely build. Readers expecting a plot-heavy fae-court adventure are sometimes caught off guard by how character- and atmosphere-driven the story is.
Read it if
- · Fans of cozy fantasy who want slow-burn romance with wit and emotional depth over steam
- · Readers drawn to folkloric, morally complex faeries grounded in academic world-building rather than glamorous fae courts
- · Those who love an atypical, neurodivergent-coded heroine and an autumn-to-winter Scandinavian atmosphere
Skip it if
- · You need fast-paced plotting or present-action thriller pacing — the journal format keeps excitement at a narrative distance
- · You want meaningful on-page romantic payoff in Book 1; the romance is very slow and restrained throughout
- · Fae-court intrigue, power politics, and dark romance are your primary draw — this is village folklore mystery, not court scheming
If you liked this
- · For fans of The Cruel Prince by Holly Black — fae mythology and slow-burn tension, but far gentler, cozier, and without the court politics or graphic violence
- · For fans of Piranesi by Susanna Clarke — meticulous academic world-building, an unreliable narrator piecing together a mystery, and a deeply strange magical reality
- · For fans of Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke — early-1900s scholarly voice, British academia meets dangerous faerie lore, and dry English wit
- · For fans of Divine Rivals by Rebecca Ross — literary slow-burn romance between rivals with a whimsical, period-set magical backdrop
In this series
Part of Emily Wilde — read in order:
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