★★★★☆ Emily Wilde is terrifying

Emily Wilde's Compendium of Lost Tales

Heather Fawcett

Everyone seems to think that Heather Fawcett's Emily Wilde novels are a Cozy Fantasy series. I don't see it. I'm not saying you're wrong, if you think that. No one but you can tell you how you feel, and if Emily gives you a cozy feeling, then she just does, and there is no more to be said about it.

But I just don't see it. In Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries Emily tortures a child, then defeats a terrifying fairy king in part by chopping off her own finger with an axe. In Emily Wilde’s Map of the Otherlands she infiltrates a fairy kingdom and gets rid of the ruler by poisoning her. She has a familiar called Shadow who is a monstrous Black Hound. I'm not going to tell you what she does in Emily Wilde's Compendium of Lost Tales, except to say that she doesn't dial it back.

She terrifies even her romantic interest Wendell. He is not afraid she will harm him, but that she will, by the risks she takes, accomplish her own demise. He's no fool to fear this.

I suspect that if Emily were compelled to go up against, say, Holly Black's Jude or Seanan McGuire's October Daye, they would know they had been in a fight. Viv wouldn't know what hit her.

But Emily likes books and drinks tea on every convenient occasion. I guess that's what defines a Cozy Fantasy heroine. (Although coffee may be an acceptable substitute.)

And I just love it. Emily's understated bad-assitude is just perfect. The world these days is full of people who talk tough, but turn out to be creampuffs when compelled to act. (Nothing against creampuffs in their place. It's creampuffs full of bluster who deserve contempt.)

Sadly, I think we have reached the end of the series. But if Fawcett graces us with more tales of Emily, I will read them.

Emily Wilde's Compendium of Lost Tales on Amazon

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