So refreshingly delightful! I think I just found my next “favorite” book.

The format of the book is really a journal that is being kept by Emily as she researches fairy folk for her definitive work: a comprehensive encyclopaedia of fairies. Almost all of the entries are by Emily, with one interloper making some notes, and there are sprinkled in some of the tales that Emily is gathering about fairies and plentiful fairy facts. The pacing is spot-on and it is the first time in a long time that I have decided to sacrifice some sleep for a book.

Ah, the characters! Emily is so focused, so practical, so academic, and so so so lost when it comes to human relationships. In many ways, Emily was an idiosyncratic and unlikely heroine; it was hard not to empathize and appreciate her flaws–or perhaps more accurately the loss she felt in trying to understand and navigate social situations. And of course, there is Wendell, a colleague that comes swooping in to crash her field research. He provided the foil to Emily in almost every way and served up many humorous situations.

Fans of fairy lore, The Invisible Library Series, and fantasy world building will most likely enjoy this book.

Review of a Digital Advance Reading Copy provided by Del Rey

Content Analysis:

Profanity/Language: 15 religious exclamations; 17 mild obscenities; 1 religious profanity; 2 derogatory names; 2 scatological words.

Violence/Gore: Character sees a frightening image in a window of a child-sized hand covered in blood; character threatens a fairy; character discusses killing a changeling and how that then kills the child it replaces; character drives a nail into a faery creature’s chest, causing great pain, in order get compliance; fairy causes disturbing and frightening visions to scare and torture people; verbal threats of harm and/or property damage; throughout the book there are references to many of the tales about fairies and violent acts they committed against each other and humans (shooting in foot, trapping in a tree, shooting of a cat, skeletons, bringing of bones, corpses hanging from a tree, freezing to death, etc.); character is chopping wood with axe and accidentally cuts another, resulting in blood loss and severe injury, stitching of wound; report that youth are regularly abducted by fairies and those who return suffer permanent mental damage; fairy entity tries to drag a character to their doom; report that a couple has been abducted by the fairies; description of how bogle’s like to devour human flesh; fairy using magic ruthlessly runs other creatures through and snaps their necks in a scene; report of assassination attempt; character shot in chest with arrow; characters sword fight–in the end one decapitates the other (no description); character purposefully chops off a digit to break a spell, mention of blood; reference to the skins of mortals; birds fall to the ground dead and leak blood; character kisses another; violent thoughts of vengeance; heads of king’s enemies presented as gifts; reports of deaths; character jabbed with needle; character is under a spell and compelled/kept against will; chaos, fighting, pursuit, escape–mention of blood.

Sex/Nudity: Character is quite handsome and attractive and this is noticed by many throughout the book; girl wraps a sheet around herself after coming out of a male’s bedroom in the morning; young woman questions another about a man’s dalliances; woman shows up to rendezvous with a man (implied sexual) but finds man already asleep/unavailable; character learns that a girl has not fallen for a man’s charms because she is in love with a girl from another village; character is attracted to another of the opposite sex; woman brushes her fingers through a man’s hair while he sleeps; reference to fetchingly attired mistresses; character asks another about her relationship with a man and implies that there is a romantic element; man kisses a woman’s hand; marriage proposal; woman brushes her lips against a man’s; woman is going to throw herself at a man to see if she enjoys it, but is interrupted; brush face with hand, kiss on the cheek.

Mature Subject Matter:

Death, abduction (adults & children).

Alcohol/Drug Use:

Character smokes cigarette; there is a tavern and throughout the book characters drink there; story of attempted poisoning; attempted poisoning/assassination;