Welcome to Litsy!

What a delight of a book! A delicate, twisting road through the world of the fae — some of it familiar, some not — with our heroine getting embroiled in her own study. The tale of a cruel winter court makes perfect winter reading, as long as you have a cozy blanket! Emily is grumpy and skeptical and set in her ways, but at the same time possesses a sense of wonder and a willingness to see magic in the world. Her counterpart, Bambleby… ⬇️⬇️

Finally picking this one up! Dearly hoping it lives up to the hype even a little…

This went from a 4-star to a 2-star slowly but surely. I didn't hate it but there were a bunch of glaring problems with some plot points that made me scratch my head in confusion. The MCs remained stagnant in terms of character development which would have really helped with this premise.--

I'm about halfway through this so here are some thoughts:

I love the folklore stuff but I also wish the book kept focusing on that instead of side plots. I know it can get repetitive that way but I would prefer that tbh.

There's hints of MC being ND and thus making the hinted romance awkward and one sided. Not 100% sure its good rep

It seems odd to admit that I find the company of such a boisterous person restful, but perhaps it is always restful to be around someone who does not expect anything from you beyond what is in your nature.

This book was a perfect cozy read on a winter night - although there is a decent amount of darkness in this book when it comes to the faeries. I enjoyed the darker side of certain faeries and was glad it wasn't all rainbows and roses. The book didn't drag on and the epistolary style worked well for this book. The Arctic setting of a remote village in a Scandinavian country was a perfect fit and the banter between the characters was enjoyable.

I'm simply lost in this book and cannot put it down. I'm so glad I chose this book to read next and kick me out of my reading slump. The plan is to finish the book tonight while I munch on some baguette, aged cheddar cheese and green olives. I cannot think of a better way to spend the evening!

Started this book yesterday and I'm hoping it's a nice, cozy winter read. It does seem like it could be the perfect book for a winter read. I'm also absolutely obsessed with this beautiful bookmark I got for Christmas 😍.

#Faeries #Arctic #Norway #Folk #WoodenBookmark #SugarRush #Readathon
@Bookwormjillk

Omg I loved this book! Emily and Wendell are delightful and I need to know more about his “terrible cat”! Looking forward to starting the second book.

Having trouble getting into this. 🙁 It seems like it wants to be Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell and I just read that...

Wow, thank you so much for the amazing gifts in the stocking package - I absolutely love everything about it!! Those pretzels will be gone by end of day and I will probably have them with the black tea! Both books are perfect picks for me!! Thank you soooo much for such an amazing package!!

And thank you again @Avanders for hosting and organizing such a fun swap!

#StuffedStockingSwap #SSS

@LeahBergen

Yep, I am still reading books off my #AuldLangSpine-list. This was last month‘s #bookspin choice and oh, how I liked it. It‘s one of those books that you count the hours that you can go back to it in the evening. I love fantasy-settings that throw you in and you have to figure out a lot for yourself. Also I liked Emily Wilde. So thank you @JamieArc for recommending me yet another gem

4.5/5 ?????

"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."

#fantasy #faeries

I really enjoyed this delightful, slightly whimsical story with a sprinkling of romance. The faeries weren‘t always sweetness and light, there were some malevolent ones too. I liked the two main characters, Emily and Wendel, and the fact the book was written in an epistolary style. I‘m looking forward to book two.

I really enjoyed the format of the book. Epistolary novels are some of my favorites. However, the FMC just really annoyed me sometimes. She was too curmudgeonly for her own good. 4.25 stars.
#ReadAway2024 @Andrew65 @DieAReader @GHABI4ROSES
#LitsyLoveReads @Alwaysbeenaloverofbooks @Read4life @TieDyeDude

For #HyggeHour.

I‘m reading this with my online book group, https://thereadingloft.groups.io/g/main.

This novel mixes mystery, fantasy, and historical fiction with a touch of cozy. My book club chose this during a very quick book store visit. However, unpopular opinion here- this slow-paced tale didn‘t quite resonate with me, despite its unique premise. Ultimately, this book didn‘t hit the mark for me and I just didn‘t connect with the characters. Many readers have loved it, including all of the other members of my book club. ⭐⭐⭐/5 stars. ❤️📚

It doesn't feel like 100° outside, which means I can have the window open! Listening to the breeze through the leaves as I read this book, enjoy this yummy snack, and drinking some hibiscus apple vanilla tea. It's a good day. 🙂

Enjoyed reading this one on the beach on vacation. The settings couldn‘t be more different though…. 😆❤️📚🌊❄️

EEEEEKKKK I have a new favorite. If you‘re into Veronica Speedwell, but wish it had some magic, I think that‘s a good pitch, but our main character doesn‘t have the wiles Veronica has with humans- Emily is purely academic, very logical, very practical - and very lovable, as is the contrast between her and her field partner/bane of her life. I loved it so much, immediately started rereading. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

This is so far outside my normal read but I ended up quite enjoying it. I didn‘t love the romance aspect - it‘s rare that I do - but I loved the grumpy snark of the main character and how she faced various fairies and their many foibles. I‘ll definitely read the follow up book as I‘m interested to see where it might go! 🌟🌟🌟🌟

My fiancé bought me this book a couple weeks back, so thoughtful! I finished reading it today on a hilltop in the mountains (I think Emily would approve of this setting). What a delight! Very different from what I was expecting. I loved the balance between fanciful and darker themes while exploring such a unique landscape. If you‘re even curious about this one I recommend giving it a chance.

1) Got a raise at work today!
2) Celebrated my birthday ?!
3) Received the nicest yarn, card and knitting book from my fiancé!
4) Got to catch up with two sisters and one friend this week on the phone.
5) Enjoyed blue sky for the first time in over two weeks! (It‘s been so smoky here)

#5JoysFriday

@DebinHawaii

And that's #WickedWords done for July! @AsYouWish

A graphic novel, a story, two fantasy historicals, and a historical romance. My pick of the lot has. got to be Emily Wilde, though I enjoyed all of them.

This book was 100% my catnip, and it delivered for me. Lady scientist, alternate history fantasy context, inscrutable fae, lovely sense of place, neurodivergent coded MC, canine sidekick w/ a secret, cosy village slice-of-life - all good for me.

Also!:

#SBTBingo - #stargazing #epistolary
#booklistqueenchallenge24 - #grwinner2023
#popsugar2024 and #readharder2024 - #cosyfantasy
#Pantone2024 - #redorange and #goldenpalm
#WickedWords @AsYouWish

My adorable husband surprised me with this book because he thought I would enjoy it.

Emily is a researcher, she researches Fae, Fairies etc. She has gone on an expedition to document never before documented wee folk and hopefully high Fae. Her adventure is crashed by an annoying coworker, townspeople are kidnapped by Fae and the adventure turns out to be much more than she expected.

I know I‘m the last person in the world to read Emily Wilde, but it‘s SO GOOD! If lady scientists travelling to distant lands to study hitherto unknown species of fae are your jam, this could be the book for you. These are not cute pink wingéd fairies, though. Fae will fuck you up. Carry a copper coin, an iron nail, a well honed sense of peril.

This book had all the right ingredients for me to love it. For some reason, however, it never really clicked for me. It's possible it was a mood thing. It wasn't bad, but I was ready to be done reading it by the end.

I liked how this book balanced out the somewhat light main plot with heavier "research" sections. Fawcett was successful in making the faeries both charming and cruelly dispassionate.

An enjoyable tale of an academic who studies the fae and her time in Norway to collect stories of the northern Folk. To her dismay, she is joined by a colleague, Wendell. To his dismay, she gets a little too involved in the stories she studies.

Just give me all the fairy stories please!

Sigh. I wanted to enjoy this a lot more than I actually did. The story was great. Emily goes to a town to look for the faerie folk. She gets enmeshed into the town and their troubles. Her colleague Wendell shows up and definitely helps her with the town and to make friends, even though all she wants to do is read her books and spend time with her dog. Something was just a little off for me, which stopped me from loving it and just liking it.

Absolutely dazzling with sweetness and light academia. I thought Emily would annoy me in that FMC way of “ohh I‘m so bad at people that all my actions are all beyond cringe.” However, no, the juxtaposition of Emily and Bambleby is genuinely sweet, and I loved Emily more and more. I need more light hearted adventurous fantasy. Thank you, @Kimberlone , who has been recommending this since she read it. #fantasy #audiobook #fairy

I almost bailed on this read. I found the writing kludgy and the authors‘s tendency to drop unnecessary classical allusions into the text was just plain weird. About halfway though, it was like a switch was thrown and suddenly a plot appeared and the characters began to shine, and maybe that was the point. Once Emily accepts the help of her fae colleague, Bambleby and that of her neighbors, she grows beyond her stodgy ways.

This book was magical, to say the least. I love the way the author described the little enchanted places where the fairies lived. It makes me wonder if it‘s possible that they live among us, using their little doors to get from realm to realm. This book was part one of a series that I plan to continue. It seemed to have a little of everything, including romance.

This was a cute respite from my usual reads - mysteries, serial killers, murders, et al. Emily is extremely likable even though she isn‘t likable (INTROVERTS UNITE!!) which makes the story better. I‘m never a fan of perfection. I like my characters flawed and fabulous and that‘s Emily. Full review IG ScrappyMags (I follow book peeps back!)

This atmospheric story about scholars, Fairies, and a bunch of villagers isolated in a snowy land, pulls the reader in to another realm. Unfortunately, the ending fizzled.

Out for an #audiowalk with tagged book. It's a great story to consume outside! I'd love to take it to a forest sometime.

#WonderousWednesday
1) Craig Johnson, Louise Penny, Carlene O‘Connor, Amanda Flower, Heather Weber, Kate Khavari,

2) Right now, the tagged book

3) Craig Johnson, Louise Penny, Amanda Flower, and Carlene O‘Connor (sorry. Choosing one was too stressful. 🙂)

1) Fairy

2) Emily Wilde‘s Encyclopaedia of Faeries and Emily Wilde‘s Map of the Otherlands. Looking forward to Emily Wilde‘s Compendium of Lost Tales

#TwoForTuesday

I really enjoyed the mc and her adventures in the faierie realm. Her single-mindedness makes for awkward relationships with the humans around her. I loved Wendel Brambleby and his interactions with Emily as well!

I loved this book so much! The idea of faerie being real and studied academically was so fun to me, and both scholars definitely reminded me of personalities I've encountered as a grad student / professor. I will certainly be reading the sequel!

I was wary of this, so many cosy reads lately I have found too saccerine. But this is in the vein of the Lady Trent books and I enjoyed it a lot. The main secondary character is Irish and I was very pleasantly surprised to find zero hint of stage Oirishness in the book. Strong pick.

"remember the trouble you had giving co-author credit to that Welsh shepherd for your paper on faerie mounds? Your peer reviewers wouldn't let it go to print."

? I'm such an academic - this was the passage that convinced me that the seemingly morally ambiguous Emily was actually a good person at heart and not just motivated by her own ambition.

This is overall a really fun read! I do wish there had been explicit explanation of why eating the faerie food is just fine (since it not being without consequences is a common trope), but otherwise I had a great time reading this one.

The cold had claws.

I am the same kind of curmudgeon that Emily is…almost. Another beautiful cover and a book that I was engrossed in. I liked the character interactions. The book read fast.

I adored this book & jumping right into the sequel. If you‘re looking for a wintery fantasy with a cute tiny community & creepy yet cute faerie creatures—check this one out. Set in Norway.

What books with a winter setting have you enjoyed recently?

#winter #wintersetting #fantasy #bookreview