What happened in Emily Wilde by Heather Fawcett?

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Title: Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries

Author: Heather Fawcett

Series: Emily Wilde #1

1. Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries (2023)
2. Emily Wilde's Map of the Other Lands (2024)
3. Emily Wilde's Compendium of Lost Tales (2025)

Add it: Goodreads

Goodreads Summary:

A curmudgeonly professor journeys to a small town in the far north to study faerie folklore and discovers dark fae magic, friendship, and love in the start of a heartwarming and enchanting new fantasy series.

Cambridge professor Emily Wilde is good at many things: She is the foremost expert on the study of faeries. She is a genius scholar and a meticulous researcher who is writing the world's first encyclopaedia of faerie lore. But Emily Wilde is not good at people. She could never make small talk at a party--or even get invited to one. And she prefers the company of her books, her dog, and the Fair Folk.

So when she arrives in the hardscrabble village of Hrafnsvik, Emily has no intention of befriending the gruff townsfolk. Nor does she care to spend time with another new arrival: her dashing and insufferably handsome academic rival Wendell Bambleby, who manages to charm the townsfolk, get in the middle of Emily's research, and utterly confound and frustrate her.

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? To find the answer, she'll have to unlock the greatest mystery of all--her own heart.

Here is a spoiler summary of what happened in Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries by Heather Fawcett to help refresh your memory before you read the sequel. If you need help remembering what happened in  Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries then you’re in the right place.

What happened in Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries?

• Emily Wilde is a Cambridge professor who is researching faeries. She travels for five days from London to Ljosland to research the Hidden Ones. 
• A farmer called Krystjan lets Emily stay in a cottage on his land. He’s a bit standoffish but to be honest, Emily isn’t the best at interacting with people.
• Krystjan tells Emily that the locals aren’t sure how to feel about her coming to their village. They don’t think she is suited to the extreme weather conditions or studying the faeries.
• Emily does indeed struggle to start a fire. Finn, Krystjan’s son, lights it for her and brings her some tea. He asks some questions about her research, and Emily shares her encyclopaedia project.
• Emily receives a letter from a colleague named Wendell Bambleby. He fills Emily in on the goings on at Cambridge, and indicates that he may join her in Ljosland. Emily burns the letter.
• Finn brings some food the following morning. Finn reveals that Krystjan judges Finn’s interest in baking.
• Emily finds Wendell’s letter still intact in the hearth. Emily thinks this lines up with her theory of Wendell being a fae.
• Emily explores the local area and finds a hot spring. A curious small fae is hanging around and she gives it some gifts.
• Emily heads to the local tavern and meets some locals. Lilja is a young woman who has faeries regularly passing through her garden. Emily asks whether she could see it, and Lilja agrees that she can.
• Aud is the head of the village, and she invites Emily to her home. Aud seems to close off later on in the conversation. Aud has a niece, who is non-verbal and non-responsive after being kidnapped by faeries.
• Thora tells Emily that the locals are betting on how long it’ll take for Emily to leave.
• Email returns to her cottage and is unable to cut any firewood. 
• Finn brings more food to the cottage and tells Emily she offended Aud, so the other villagers don’t like her either. Emily plans to speak to Aud to clear the air.
• Emily returns to the hot spring to find that her gifts have been taken. A small faerie approaches Emily and looks in her pockets. She offers a bear skin in exchange for bread. The faerie agrees to this trade, but it doesn’t offer up any information about itself.
• Emily tries to talk to Aud, but Aud insists there’s nothing wrong. The local grocer reveals that Aud told her to charge Emily the higher tourist prices.
• Emily sees a faerie in a family home, and she goes to the house to investigate. The faerie leaves a bloody handprint on the window, which disappears quite quickly.
• Emily goes to the springs and makes the trade with her little faerie friend. He asks Emily to keep the path clear of snow in exchange for more bread. Seems good to Emily.
• Emily returns to the cottage to find that Wendell has arrived, along with two of his students. Wendell starts bossing Henry and Lizzie around and tells them to tidy up the house.
• Wendell tells Emily that he wants to help her with her research and definitely not take the credit for any of it.
• Wendell invites Emily to a folklore conference.
• Wendell gets Krystjan to make dinner.
• Emily returns to the house with the evil handprint faerie, this time taking Wendell with her. Emily thinks the faerie is a wight at first, but the family living there reveal that it’s a changeling who has replaced the couple’s child, Ari. Emily thinks this is wild, because normally changelings from elsewhere take newborns, not children or teenagers.
• The changeling causes Emily to hallucinate after she enters its room. The changeling doesn’t speak much when Emily questions it, just goes on about the willow tree in the forest.
• Wendell introduces himself around town and charms everyone.
• Emily returns to the spring. She names her faerie friend Poe. Poe seems anxious, and reveals that he met Wendell but he wasn’t a fan. He doesn’t want Wendell to come back. Poe says Wendell was asking about faerie doors, of which there aren’t any in the forest.
• Emily tells Wendell not to visit Poe.
• Emily and Wendell go to the tavern in town. Wendell takes Lilja home and sleeps with her. It’s a bit awkward for Emily the next morning.
• Wendell takes the students to visit the changeling and they hate the entire encounter.
• Wendell tells Emily that Aud was offended when Emily didn’t let Aud pay for her first meal in the tavern.
• The students leave Ljosland without telling anyone. 
• Emily has to learn to chop wood for the winter, and accidentally chops Wendell’s arm. She gets him back to the cottage, and then runs into town to ask Aud and Lilja for help. Aud stitches up Wendell’s wound, and Lilja continues chopping wood for them.
• Human remedies don’t work on Wendell’s wound, so he’s definitely a courtly fae. His body also fades in and out. Aud notices this and agrees to keep it a secret. 
• Wendell wakes up and Emily cries from relief.
• Locals visit to check up on Wendell.
• Emily learns that the fae in this region are totally unique, and don’t normally show themselves to mortals. The locals reveal that the fae have been snatching people from the town over the recent years. The locals tell Emily about an ancient white tree, which is said to imprison an ancient faerie king.
• Wendell advises the changeling’s fake parents to spoil the changeling and stop locking it away. It’ll probably win it over.
• Emily and Wendell go to find the white tree. Wendell refuses to get close to it. He tells Emily to get away from it, but Emily touches the tree, ignoring Wendell even when he tries to use his faerie magic on her to get her to leave.
• Wendell tries to get Shadow, the dog, to drag Emily away, but the tree gets angry and pulls Wendell towards it.
• Emily realises that Wendell has been enchanted to keep his faerie self a secret, so she tells him that she knows, so he’s able to use his powers to get away from the tree.
• Lilja tells Emily that she has a girlfriend in the next village over, and she’s not interested in Wendell at all.
• Wendell tells Emily that he’s a faerie prince from Ireland. His evil stepmother killed his siblings and exiled him. He’s trying to find a door back to his realm so he can take back his throne. Emily offers to help.
• Emily isn’t able to tell Wendell that she has been enchanted by the ancient tree.
• Emily visits Poe’s tree, which has been burned. Poe is lost in the forest so Emily goes to save him.
• Emily learns that Lilja and her girlfriend have been stolen by the Hidden Ones. Emily wants to save them and Wendell agrees to help.
• The town gives Emily and Wendell supplies so they can set off into the woods.
• Wendell heals Poe’s tree. Poe tells Emily that Lilja was taken to the place “where the aurora bleeds white”. 
• A ring of shadow wraps around Emily’s finger – an indication of the enchantment.
• At night, Emily goes to the loo, and gets surrounded by bogle faeries. Emily uses magic words to defend herself and turn invisible. She calls for Wendell, who kills the bogles. Emily is frightened by how much Wendell enjoys killing them.
• Wendell tells Emily that he’s a king, not a prince.
• Emily wakes up and sees the aurora bleeding white. She sneaks off with Shadow and they enter a door into the faerie realm. They find a faerie market, and soon spot Lilja and Margret.
• Shadow protects the women from any enchantments and this pulls Lilja and Margret out of their trance.
• A man threatens to tell the other faeries that Emily has no enchantment and demands her cloak, which Wendell did enchant for her.
• The women and Shadow escape but they’re unable to find another door to get home.
• Wendell writes in Emily’s diary, and says Emily is currently asleep. Shadow found a door to alert Wendell of the situation, and Wendell ripped a hole between realms to rescue Emily. He got shot by the cloak guy, and turns back time to prevent the injury from happening. He fought the cloak guy and defeated him after Emily stabbed herself to forge a sword for him.
• They return to town. Everyone now knows about Wendell being a faerie.
• Emily wants to continue to research the missing people rather than return to England for the conference.
• Lilja and Margret thank Emily for rescuing them. Lilja offers to teach Emily to chop wood.
• Emily admits that she dated another Cambridge professor before but they broke up a while ago.
• Aud asks if Wendell wants a gift from the town. Emily suggests she gives him a sewing needle and some mirrors.
• Emily discovers that the Hidden Ones have been taking people because the changeling has been acting as a beacon to draw them in. Emily tells Aud, and they agree to banish the changeling.
• Emily delivers Aud’s gifts to Wendell after one of his solo walks. Emily asks Wendelll to help banish the changeling, and in order to do so they need to find out its real name.
• Emily learns its name by taking its token. She and Wendell are able to reunite the changeling with its real mother, who tells them that the faerie queen is the one who sealed the ancient king in the tree, and none of the faeries are happy about it. The changeling is the king’s child and was sent to the town to keep it safe.
• The real Ari is sent home.
• Wendell confesses his love to Emily. He proposes and offers to tell her his real name. Emily declines politely.
• Emily’s shadow ring turns to ice and she is completely controlled by the enchantment. But not before she cuts off her finger before she is stolen away.
• Emily asks Poe how the king was imprisoned. Poe says the faerie queen gave the king a special cloak.
• Emily leaves a note for Wendell explaining that she is going to release the faerie king. She uses magic to undo the buttons of the special cloak, freeing the king.
• The king kisses Emily. He tells her that a seer warned him that he’d be locked up by his people and then saved by a scholar, who he would marry.
• The king creates an ice castle for the new couple. This causes an avalanche that hits a nearby town.
• The king tells Emily he plans to release the mortals who have been stolen by his people.
• Magic makes Emily lose track of time. She is trapped in the ice castle, and is unable to escape.
• Snow falls. Emily worries that the town will freeze to death. She asks the king to save people, he refuses. 
• Emily tries to prevent the king from marrying her.
• Dressmakers arrive to make Emily’s wedding dress. Emily recognises one of the garments as Wendell’s, and realises that Wendell and Shadow have disguised themselves as tailors. 
• Wendell tells Emily that the entire village is plotting to save her. Aud plans to visit the king to present a gift, and will then poison him so Emily can escape.
• Wendell spoke to the queen, who plans to sneak into the ceremony to kill the king once and for all.
• Emily reads Wendell’s journal entries. His journal is filled with drawings of Emily.
• The wedding day arrives. Emily wears the green dress that Wendell made. The villagers give the king poisoned wine, but Emily hesitates to let the king drink it. Aud knocks the glass out of Emily’s hands and declares that someone has poisoned the glass. The faerie queen shows up and it’s all chaotic because the king hasn’t been poisoned. Emily and the villagers escape during the chaos.
• Aud asks the king to stop the snow after she apparently saved his life.
• Emily and Wendell plan to head back to England. The villagers throw a little party.
• Aud warns Emily against making friends with the faeries. As Wendell and Emily are about to leave, Aud invites Emily back for Lilja’s wedding.
• Poe gives Emily a bone, which he says is a key.
• Wendell and Emily present at the conference.
• Epilogue: There’s an ancient Irish story that depicts a queen with twelve children ruling the kingdom of Burre. The youngest prince wishes to rule, and he releases golden ravens to bring him luck. He accidentally curses the land. A girl is hired by the queen’s sister. The girl is super clumsy and this upsets the house faeries, so much so that she worries they’ll kill her for causing such a mess. A witch tells her to find the prince to lift the curse. The prince and the girl marry, but the girl ruins her wedding dress and the house faeries beat her. She transforms back into a golden raven. The prince transforms himself to search for her.

That’s what happened in Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries. Check out our recap list for more recaps. If you can’t find what you need, you can request a recap from us!