Late last year, I finally read Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries by Heather Fawcett, after leaving it rotting on my shelf for a fair amount of time. Even though I wasn’t fully convinced by this book, I was curious for Emily’s and Wendell’s next adventure. This one comes with the next book Emily Wilde’s Map of the Otherlands and brings the cast to the Austrian Alps. Did this book do a worthy job being my first read of 2025? This review contains spoilers for the first book in this series.

About the book

Emily Wilde’s Map of the Otherlands by Heather Fawcett
Series: Emily Wilde #2
Published by Del Rey Books on January 16, 2024
Pages: 339
Genres: Adult, Fantasy

When mysterious faeries from other realms appear at her university, curmudgeonly professor Emily Wilde must uncover their secrets before it’s too late, in this heartwarming, enchanting second installment of the Emily Wilde series.

Emily Wilde is a genius scholar of faerie folklore who just wrote the world’s first comprehensive encyclopaedia of faeries. She’s learned many of the secrets of the Hidden Ones on her adventures . . . and also from her infuriatingly charming fellow scholar Wendell Bambleby.

Because Bambleby is more than brilliant and unbearably handsome. He’s an exiled faerie king on the run from his murderous mother and in search of a door back to his realm. And despite Emily’s feelings for Bambleby, she’s not ready to accept his proposal of marriage: Loving one of the Fair Folk comes with secrets and dangers.

She also has a new project to focus on: a map of the realms of faerie. While she is preparing her research, Bambleby lands her in trouble yet again, when assassins sent by his mother invade Cambridge. Now Bambleby and Emily are on another adventure, this time to the picturesque Austrian Alps, where Emily believes they may find the door to Bambleby’s realm and the key to freeing him from his family’s dark plans.

But with new relationships for the prickly Emily to navigate and dangerous Folk lurking in every forest and hollow, Emily must unravel the mysterious workings of faerie doors and of her own heart.

My review

Before reading

After reading Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries, I wasn’t fully convinced by the series yet. I mean, this is not a super cozy cozy story, but the sub genre of cozy fantasy is a hit or miss for me. The stakes are pretty low, and I prefer more action-packed stories with higher stakes and tension. However, I already heard that Emily Wilde’s Map of the Otherlands has proven to be more tense and that the stakes were much higher. I was therefore looking forward to pick it up, I just wanted to wait until the clock has struck midnight on December 31 and we rang in a new year. I hate to start a new book on the final day of the year. I got myself the audiobook in the end, after I already bought a Kindle copy. I expected to enjoy the audio version of this book better and to fly through it in a breeze.

Characters

In this book, we follow Emily and Wendell after their return to Cambridge after publishing Emily’s encyclopaedia. The new academic year has started, and it might be time for a new expedition. Circumstances at the university speed up their departure and make sure more people come along than they intended, or even wanted. Especially to Emily’s dismay. First there is her niece Ariadne, who is very vibrant and has a high interest in dryadology. She’s Emily’s assistant, but Emily has a hard time to adjust to Ariadne being around. Ariadne is very present and has a lot of questions. Moreover, she is kind of a busybody and that’s not a match for Emily who easily gets annoyed by her. Emily rather works alone and still is socially awkward, even though she has grown a lot since the last expedition where her bluntness got her into trouble more than desirable for her research. She still struggles socially, but now has a better understanding of what (not) to say or do and when. The other new character is Dr. Rose, the head of the faculty. He and Emily clash a lot about their difference in research methods. Rose is a scientist for much longer than Emily and prefers the old methods instead of Emily’s – according to him – unconventional ones. Finally, we have Wendell. He still has his usual banter, but he is the reason why the group has to leave Cambridge so suddenly. He keeps denying that something is wrong and that it might affect not only him, but his loved ones as well. He still is a good counterbalance to Emily. Whereas she’s quite blunt and lacks tact, he is amicable and willing to provide help. Especially with Ariadne. Fawcett did a good job in creating such a dynamic, diverse cast of characters. I totally understood why Emily was annoyed with both Ariadne and Dr. Rose, I sometimes was as well. In the end, we see all of them grow, which was satisfying to see.

Writing

Fawcett kept the same structure for this novel as for the previous one in the series. Emily is, of course, a scientist and wants to journal her entire expedition. This makes lots of sense for this type of story and whereas I had to get used to it before, I was familiar with it now and therefore could easily get sucked into the story. There were footnotes yet again, which is no surprise. As I listened to the audiobook, these were included in the narration which made it easy to follow. I didn’t have to skip to the end of the book to get more information on these footnotes. I actually ignored them I think, because I can’t remember any of them. Since this book is written as a journal, the chapters vary in length. Some are short, others are longer. I didn’t mind this to be honest as I still flew through this novel in a breeze.

Plot

As already predicted, the plot provides a dark and tense atmosphere. This has to do with the circumstances Emily and Wendell are facing, but also with the landscape they are doing research in. The Apls are quite unpredictable, which is common for mountain areas. You have to stay on the trail and have to take the dark into account, otherwise it can be very dangerous. The characters face this too and it kind of impacts their research. Furthermore, Wendell angered his stepmom who now seeks revenge. They therefore have to be careful about their whereabouts for that matter. And then there’s something going on with Wendell himself, which provides the mysterious part to this plotline. As you might understand, this is not your typical cozy fantasy with low stakes and light banter. Yes, there is light banter here, but the story itself gets quite dangerous at many points. This kept me on edge multiple times. I was very intrigued and wanted to know what would happen next. It’s this intrigue that made me finish nearly half of the book in just one day. The novel is ending on a brighter note, but this makes me very curious for the next book in this series.

Final thoughts

Emily Wilde’s Map of the Otherlands by Heather Fawcett was a nice kickstart to my 2025 reading year. It’s tense, action-packed, intriguing and easily written. The cast of characters is expended with interesting additions and the stakes are much higher in this plot compared to the previous book in this series. Even though the ending is much more of a cozy one, I’m pretty curious for what’s to come in Emily Wilde’s Compendium of Lost Tales. I strongly recommend the audiobook as this brought the story more to life for me. Are you looking for something romantic? Then this is not the book for you. There is some romance, but it’s very minimal. Are tension and high stakes with a cozy edge exactly what you’re looking for? Then this book suits you perfectly.