A few months ago on vacation, my niece and I stopped in a bookstore to browse. We saw the Shady Hollow series display at the same time and both said, “Ooooh.” These books have the most charming covers, so I downloaded the first one from my library to read on the flight home. Naturally, my hope was that the story would be just as charming so I could justify buying them all to hoard like a dragon.
Sadly, ’twas not to be. Shady Hollow, a cozy mystery set in a world of talking animals, was a disappointment. It follows Vera Vixen, a reporter (and a fox) in the incredibly adorable little animal community of Shady Hollow, who discovers the murdered body of a toad and helps the police investigate the crime. As the first in the series, it introduces the reader to the residents of Shady Hollow and sets up some plot points that I’m sure are carried further in future books.
This felt like a middle-grade mystery to me. I’m actually not sure if it’s written for children or not, but the writing was so simplistic, and the characters so one-dimensional, that I was bored. Sadly (because the covers are SO CUTE) I will not be continuing this series.
My library’s Libby has been pushing Emily Wilde’s Encyclopedia of Faeries at me, so even though I wasn’t super interested in the plot, I once again picked it up because of the charming cover. This time, I’m pleased to say that paid off. The first in a trilogy, Encyclopedia of Faeries is the story of Professor Emily Wilde of Cambridge, who travels to some Nordic-esque village (I don’t believe the country is ever named in the book) to study the faeries of the region and work on her opus, an encyclopedia of all faerie types. She’s kind of a stereotypical nerdy professor, the type who is so engrossed in her work that she has trouble interacting with us less intelligent “normal” folk. Soon enough, she’s alienated the people of the village where she’s staying, and her colleague, Wendell Bambleby, arrives in town and quickly charms everyone, to her chagrin (she is not a fan).
I liked this book quite a bit. I read it quickly, and I enjoyed it. It reminded me of a more accessible, more interesting Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell (even down to the footnotes regarding the history of faeries in each chapter). While there weren’t really any surprises here, I liked the characters and I liked the plot. I liked it enough, in fact, to pick up book two almost immediately.
Emily Wilde’s Map of the Otherlands retains much of the charm of book one, including a landscape that feels both charming and magical (this time they’re in the Bavarian countryside), and characters that are likable and easy to root for. While I didn’t speed through this one at the same rate (and have yet to pick up book three), I enjoyed this one too, although I felt it dragged a bit in the middle. Also, for most of Map of the Otherlands, Wendell is sick, having been poisoned by an enemy (to avoid spoilers for book 1 I’ll say no more about that), so he’s missing in action a little bit. As the most entertaining and funniest character in the books, his absence was felt. Still, I enjoyed book two a lot and do plan to read book three sometime soon. So I guess sometimes judging a book by its cover pays off.
Ratings: 2 stars for Shady Hollow, 4.5 for Encyclopedia of Faeries, and 4 for Map of the Otherlands
