I told her early into reading that I was having trouble with this book and she so sweetly volunteered to read it with me and I am so grateful to have had someone to rant with!

Neither of us believe she is because there was no author’s note or mention of this representation throughout the book or its premise. 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? And here, where the struggles are something we can pinpoint easily to dates and specifics, it's hard to ignore that discrepency.Events hang together by tenuous threads, often of motivation that we simply do not see spelled out in how people act. And it’s trying to do the sort of cosy, romantic fantasy that is currently enjoying a surge of popularity, so it’s not even as though it deserves points for originality.

They are the epitome of 'opposites attract' and it fills my heart with joy every time they banter and argue with each other. Further compounding Emily’s frustration is the arrival of her charismatic colleague and insufferably handsome academic rival Wendell Bambleby. A genius scholar and foremost expert on faeries, Emily Wilde is writing the world’s first encyclopedia of faerie lore. It's an isolated island that’s about as far north as a person can go without hitting the North Pole.However, she wasn't aware that it would be so rustic that she would need to chop her own wood to keep warm. The influence of Bambleby only enhances this, but as it goes on the plot gets somewhat lost underneath all the academic technobabble, so it does not manage to fire on all possible cylinders. The action was always diminished to a summarization, eliminating a lot of the stakes, and the dialogue always seemed out of place. Fawcett appeared to be trying to incorporate different elements from these earlier fantasy works, but failed to package them into a book that was engaging and thought provoking. Like, there are a lot of cozy vibes and moments and settings (omg did i love the market too) in this, but, again, there are a lot of darker themes and the story takes showing the dark faery side of things!

Not sure there’s a more perfect book for the winter hitting shelves this month, and certainly a great example of why we need more ‘light academia’ stories out there. For the most part I enjoyed it, but I didn't like the direction the story took in the last 100 pages or so.As a person who is an active advocate and has a personal attachment in the ASD and neurodivergent community for over a decade, I can tell you that these types of depictions are inaccurate and harmful. I’ve seen some really good reviews of it around and it definitely felt like the sort of read I really want at the moment – bit of fantasy, bit of romance (you kind of have to squint) and it’s also a historical novel as well. As they're settling in, Emily receives a letter from one of her Cambridge colleagues, Wendell Bambleby, that he's planning to join her. Emily might be tough for some to like, but her introverted nature and her passion for organising and planning her work list made me feel rather close to her.