Dipping back into the adorable light fantasy romance world of Heather Fawcett’s Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries, this time with the sequel Emily Wilde’s Map of the Otherlands. This time the drama is escalating, the tension is rising, and Emily and Wendall are at the centre of not only an iconic mystery, but a discovery that could change everything for them and their relationship.

Emily Wilde is a genius scholar of faerie folklore who just wrote the world’s first comprehensive encyclopaedia of faeries. She’s learned many of the secrets of the Hidden Ones on her adventures and also from her fellow scholar and former rival Wendell Bambleby. Bambleby is more than infuriatingly charming. He’s an exiled faerie king on the run from his murderous mother and in search of a door back to his realm. And despite Emily’s feelings for Bambleby, she’s not ready to accept his proposal of marriage: Loving one of the Fair Folk comes with secrets and dangers. She also has a new project to focus on – a map of the realms of faerie. While she is preparing her research, Bambleby lands her in trouble yet again, when assassins sent by his mother invade Cambridge. Now Bambleby and Emily are on another adventure, this time to the picturesque Austrian Alps, where Emily believes they may find the door to Bambleby’s realm and the key to freeing him from his family’s dark plans. But with new relationships for the prickly Emily to navigate and dangerous Folk lurking in every forest and hollow, Emily must unravel the mysterious workings of faerie doors and of her own heart.

The plot is engaging from the beginning, with academic rivalry and tensions roping new characters into the story and the seriousness of known faerie elements creating chaos in the very walls of Cambridge. The stakes of this book are sewn at the beginning and blossom as the chapters go by, scaling up the character tension, the romantic gestures, and the unknown mystery of the main plot along with the dreaded foreboding of the fate of these characters. There is a lot that happens in Emily Wilde’s Map of the Otherlands, but I can assure you it is all entertaining and fairly simple to follow once you get hooked into it.

Emily continues to grow and change not only because of the characters that surround her but because her thoughts and feelings change her perception and approach to life. She is constantly duty-bound to her research, putting aside almost everything else to get to the crux of the matter. All but her feelings for Wendall, and oh do those feelings go on a rollercoaster of experiences in this book. It is both sweet and funny how adamant Emily is, yet when push comes to shove she ultimately lets her heart decide. She is the character with the most growth overall, though the additions of Ariadne, Emily’s niece, and the head of department, Professor Farris Rose, make for great interactions and dynamics between the main characters.

The light fantasy and light academia vibes are still going strong in Emily Wilde’s Map of the Otherlands, and with the picturesque scenery of the Austria Alps, it culminates in this lovely setting full of magic, wonder, and awe. The setting has its contrasts at times, creating great challenges in terms of physicality and intellectual engagement that are rough and jarring for the characters. This provides that danger and unknown that keep the plot interesting, the tension high, and the action ever changing.

I had such a fun time reading Emily Wilde’s Map of the Otherlands, and I cannot wait to get my hands on Emily Wilde’s Compendium of Lost Tales. The developments across the board have me on my toes and I have so many things in mind as to what will happen. If only I had the answers right in front of me!