Emily Wilde's Compendium of Lost Tales, by Heather Fawcett (Del Rey)
I’m an unabashed fan of Heather Fawcett’s “Emily Wilde”
series. Falling loosely in the genre of “Victorian lady scholar-adventurer”
tales, these stories combine the best of the intrepid, self-reliant heroine who
falls in love despite her better judgment with a passion for academic inquiry and
a penchant for getting into trouble. Emily Wilde is a professor of dryadology,
that is, the study of all things Fae, which in this world are real if often misunderstood
and hidden. In previous adventures, she butted heads with fellow scholar,
dashing and mercurial Wendell Bambleby, who turned out to be a Faerie prince in
exile. Discovering Wendell’s identity
wasn’t enough, however. Emily found herself called upon to rescue him from
poisoning by his evil stepmother and then to help restore him to his magical realm.
Now she’s finally agreed to his marriage proposal despite all the folkloric warnings
about how inconstant and lethal the courtly faw can be. She doesn’t know if she
can truly trust him to remain himself once he’s back on the throne. But she trusts
her own heart and the truths that underlie the stories whose study is her life’s
work. None of this has prepared her for Wendell’s kingdom or the role she must
soon play as its queen. As transcendently beautiful as this realm is, darkness
stirs in the form of the stepmother’s parting revenge. The only way to save the
realm and its people is for Wendell to sacrifice himself—which Emily refuses to
consider as an option. Wendell may have other ideas.
This third volume in the series is every bit as captivating
as the earlier ones, but it seemed to me that the characters were deeper and more
complex, their inner conflicts more finely drawn. The questions have shifted
from “Will he/won’t he?” and “Will she/won’t she?” to “What will he give to
save his world and how will she save him from his better nature?” As before,
the answer lies in the depths of folklore, the resonant truths that make these
stories told again and again over generations. Those depths speak as powerfully
to modern readers of Fawcett’s books as they do to the folk inhabiting them.
Truly a joy to read and savor.
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