Tag Archive for: cozy

Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries by Heather Fawcett

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It’s 1909 and Emily Wilde is a professor of dryadology at Cambridge University. A scholar that excels in her area of all things faerie, Emily is meticulous, devoted to her interests, logical, intelligent, and introverted, preferring the company of her dog Shadow, books, and the faerie folk she meets while pursuing her studies. People perplex her, and she finds social interactions very difficult. As part of her scholarly studies Emily has decided to create the world’s first Encyclopedia of Faeries, a source book for all things fair folk. 

Emily has been working on this project, traveling around the world to visit locations with different types of faeries. She frequently interacts with those she meets, although carefully and thoughtfully, as not every faerie is the same. What might entice one faerie to approach her could enrage another. This is one of the inspirations for Emily’s encyclopaedia, learning these things about faeries and recording them for other scholars and interested individuals. 

To her chagrin, Emily isn’t as isolated as she might prefer because of her office neighbor and friend Wendell Bambleby, although I highly doubt Emily would be pleased to label him as a friend. Wendell is Emily’s opposite: loud, lazy, dashing, energetic, and worse yet for Emily, very social. He is her scholarly rival and often reviews her papers for her, whether she wants him to or not, but something Emily cannot fault Wendell on is his deep knowledge of the folk. More so, Emily has a sneaking suspicion that Wendell himself might be fae, although she is yet to prove it. 

As part of her research for her encyclopaedia Emily sets off to the fictional village of Hrafnsvik. Its description is similar to rural Norway, and its people have what they call Hidden Ones, or faerie, living in their surrounding area. Emily arrives with bad luck after bad luck: her cabin is cold and dirty, she cannot chop the wood to warm it, sheep frequently find their way inside and destroy her belongings, and worst of all Emily unintentionally angers the village leader on her first day there. But silver lining: Emily immediately finds evidence of faerie, even befriending a brownie she names Poe. 

To her shock, her bad luck seemingly continues when Wendell unexpectedly shows up. It’s pretty clear to the reader that Wendell has a thing for Emily, and she for him, but Emily herself has no idea. Even though Emily is put out by Wendell’s appearance he arrives just in time, as citizens of Hrafnsvik are going missing and disturbing faerie things are afoot. Even though Emily attempts to observe simply from a research perspective her kind nature and knowledge of faerie culture pulls her into helping the villagers, Wendell at her side. Emily finds herself deeper and deeper in the faerie mystery at hand, Poe, Wendell, and the townsfolk contributing to save their village and ultimately Emily when she digs herself too deep into the mystery. 

Emily Wilde’s Encyclopedia of Faeries by Heather Fawcett is a fun historical fantasy with captivating world building. It’s magical to read with great descriptions, settings, fantasy, and characters. Emily is a bit of a curmudgeon, independent, and a lovable character that I really enjoyed. The story feels magical, like many of its faerie characters, and the budding romance between Emily and Wendell is cute to read. This novel is the first in a trilogy, with the final novel released earlier this year. After reading the trilogy I will say the first was definitely my favorite, as the independent spirit I so admired in Emily seems to take a slight backseat to her romantic life in the following novels. Overall, I fell into this cozy novel and enjoyed wandering the faerie-filled pages with Emily.

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Review by Sarah Turner-Hill, Adult Programming Coordinator

Tress of the Emerald Sea by Brandon Sanderson

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I’ve been participating in Joplin Public Library’s Adult Winter Reading Challenge, a reading challenge designed specifically for adults that runs December 1, 2024 through January 31, 2025. The goal of the challenge is to complete five of fifteen provided reading categories, which include choices such as Debut Novel, Small-Town Setting, Western, and Suspense/Thriller, to name a few. The reader participating in the challenge chooses which categories they would like to complete, and what books to read. Once a reader completes the challenge they receive a ceramic mug from the Library and three tickets to enter into a prize raffle drawing. This challenge is ideal for regular readers who are looking for a challenge to read different genres or read outside their comfort zone, as well as individuals that want to be more regular readers and need a little nudge in that direction. Any adult can participate, no library card necessary, and challenge forms can be picked up in the Reference Department of the Library and found on our website calendar, as can a link to participate electronically.

The category I most recently completed is Been Meaning to Read, and for this I read the novel Tress of the Emerald Sea by Brandon Sanderson. A whimsical epic adventure, Tress of the Emerald Sea feels like a chuckle and warm hug from a friend and turned out to be one of my favorite reads this year. 

Tress is an 18 year old girl who lives on a rocky island void of vegetation and many other resources. The Emerald Sea her island is located upon is not like our seas: it is not made of water, but of green verdant spores which transform into vines upon contact with water. This makes sailing the seas (of which her world has 12 of different colors) tricky and dangerous. As such, Tress has lived the entirety of her life with her family on her small island, looking out upon the Emerald Sea and maintaining her teacup collection, of which she is very fond. 

Tress has one very good friend who she would like to be more than friends with on the island: Charlie. Charlie is the Duke’s son, although he pretends to be the grounds keeper when Tress is around, despite her seeing right through his act. Charlie and Tress spend a great deal of time together until the day the Duke puts his son on a ship and sends him off to find a bride. Tress and Charlie are devastated. Months pass, Charlie sends letters and cups to Tress, detailing how he is purposefully boring his potential brides, until word is received that the Duke’s son will be returning with his new bride. Tress is inconsolable; that is, until the Duke’s “son” returns and it isn’t Charlie at all but a squared jawed rude imposter! Tress learns that the Duke has abandoned Charlie to the Sorceress of the Midnight Sea, who is reportedly very evil and very unstoppable, and has adopted this fake son in place of Charlie. 

Well, Tress cannot stand for that. Someone must save Charlie, and that someone is her. Thus begins Tress’s epic adventure to save the one she loves. With a setup similar to many epic adventures, Tress is the hero that tackles impossible obstacles to see her end goal complete, with many mishaps, lovable characters, and self-growth along the way. Tress transitions from a stowaway on a boat, to a captive of a pirate ship, to a beloved crew member of that same pirate ship, to someone that can truly conquer all she takes on. There’s a talking rat, a cannon master with horrible eyesight, a wise yet intimidating dragon, and more verdant spores than Tress knows what to do with. The novel is narrated by a humorous character that Tress eventually encounters, and this narrator often breaks the fourth wall with asides to the reader that range from helpful information about a plot point or character, to random facts about himself, to nonsensical ramblings that have nothing to do with the story whatsoever; it’s wonderful. 

Brandon Sanderson has stated that he pulled inspiration for this novel from The Princess Bride after his wife pointed out that for the title character, there isn’t a lot of focus on the princess bride herself. Sanderson wanted a novel that featured a heroic female lead and that had similar spunk and whimsy to The Princess Bride, and boy did he accomplish his goal. Tress of the Emerald Sea is a delight to read. I really liked Tress as a heroine; she is kind, brave, practical, loyal, and not annoying in the way some heroines can be. The writing is clever and could be enjoyed by readers of all ages. This novel is fun to read, and I might be crossing into gushing territory here, but I do not have one negative thing to say about it. I recommend Tress of the Emerald Sea to readers interested in a character-driven playful adventure novel that simultaneously manages to accomplish creative world building and smile-inducing writing. 

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Review by Sarah Turner-Hill, Adult Programming Coordinator