4.5 stars
CBR15 Bingo: History (set in an alternate history, in the Victorian era)
15-word review: Introverted lady scholar goes to fictional Iceland to research faeries, followed by her handsome colleague.
Official book description (because I finished this at the start of May):
Cambridge professor Emily Wilde is good at many things: She is the foremost expert on the study of faeries. She is a genius scholar and a meticulous researcher who is writing the world’s first encyclopaedia of faerie lore. But Emily Wilde is not good at people. She could never make small talk at a party–or even get invited to one. And she prefers the company of her books, her dog, Shadow, and the Fair Folk to other people.
So when she arrives in the hardscrabble village of Hrafnsvik, Emily has no intention of befriending the gruff townsfolk. Nor does she care to spend time with another new arrival: her dashing and insufferably handsome academic rival Wendell Bambleby, who manages to charm the townsfolk, get in the middle of Emily’s research, and utterly confound and frustrate her.
But as Emily gets closer and closer to uncovering the secrets of the Hidden Ones–the most elusive of all faeries–lurking in the shadowy forest outside the town, she also finds herself on the trail of another mystery: Who is Wendell Bambleby, and what does he really want? To find the answer, she’ll have to unlock the greatest mystery of all–her own heart.
Ok, first of all, anyone who picked this up because they thought it was going to be a romance was probably very disappointed. Yes, Bambleby is interested in Emily, but she’s so busy trying to do her academic research and figure out what all the f*ckery that keeps happening to the local populace is caused by (well, obviously local faeries – but which ones, and why?) so she hardly notices him, except to be exasperated by his presence.
Early reviews I read for this suggested that it’s set in a fictional historical Norway. While in this alternate history, the area that Emily visits may count as part of fictional Norway, it’s clearly a fictional historical Iceland. Since the vast majority of readers who pick up this book probably have no idea what differentiates Norway and Iceland, or any of the Nordic countries really, it’s a very silly thing to get annoyed by, but nevertheless, I want it clearly stated that the various character and place names described to us by Emily (the entire book is written as her journal, or letters to or from her) are Icelandic, because, to someone from my part of the world, it is very obvious.
Full review here.
