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368 pages, Paperback
First published January 10, 2023










“Then you told me how you had tricked the boggart into thinking you a long-lost relative of his last master—a feat which had required extensive research into local lore—then bribed him with exotic seashells, for you remembered some obscure story about a boggart whose secret fantasy was to travel the world, boggarts being bound to their crumbling ruins, while I half listened in astonishment.”
Yeah, maybe next time tell me *that* story instead…
“If anyone were to claim greater happiness in their careers than I do in poking about sunlit wildwoods for faerie footprints, I should not believe it.”
“The Folk were of another world, with its own rules and customs—and to a child who always felt ill-suited to her own world, the lure was irresistible.”Professor Emily Wilde devoted her life to study the Folk and she genuinely cannot understand why someone wouldn't. The mysterious magic, the fickle friendships, the wily ways - it's all so fascinating.
Of course being a female in a male-dominated field already puts her on the wrong foot with most collogues, and considering she absolutely hates small talk that doesn't involve the Folk...let's just say that there's not much opportunity to get on the right foot.
“If anyone were to claim greater happiness in their careers than I do in poking about sunlit wildwoods for faerie footprints, I should not believe it.”
Unfortunately, Wendell Bambleby - her annoyingly peppy and pampered collogue - decides to join her. Time will tell whether it be the scary fairies or his inane cheerfulness that does her in first...
“I wish to know the unknowable. To see what no mortal has seen. To peel back the carpeting of the world and tumble into the stars.”
1909. Thirty-year-old Cambridge Professor Dr. Emily Wilde lives life with a single-minded purpose – she wishes to complete her encyclopaedia of Faerie Folk and does all she can to complete this goal, even if it means suffering the company of other people, the most irritating of whom is her colleague and rival Wendell Bambleby.
When she arrives in the remote village of Hrafnsvik, she has no desire to mingle with its denizens. However, soon she realises that Hrafnsvik is full of Fae mysteries and to unlock them, she needs the support of its residents. When the ever-charming Bambleby also turns up at the village, Emily knows she has to make some tough choices.
The story comes to use through Emily’s (first person) entries in the journal she maintains as a part of her research.