On vacation I want a light, fun book. I forgot to bring some with me, so I ran to the local bookstore and came home with two books – a fantasy and a romance. Just right for my mood.
First up: Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries By Heather Fawcett
I first heard of this book on the Reading Glasses podcast. While not typically covering my type of reading, I thoroughly enjoy listening to these two women discussing books. I decided to take the leap with the summer book because – well why not? This is the story of a Cambridge professor, Emily Wilde, who is a bookish woman with no social skills. She is working on creating an encyclopedia of faeries. While young, she is very accomplished in her field. We follow her to the far reaches of the north to find proof of the Hidden Faeries – the most elusive of their kind. When we get there we find a tough village with gruff survivors that stick to their own. Emily struggles to connect with these people, who are the key to her studies.
Enter Emily’s less disciplined, extremely handsome, academic Wendell Bambleby. He charms the townsfolk, and insinuates himself into Emily’s research, frustrating her to distraction. What follows are spoilers, but you learn more about faeries and about the human heart as you read on.
At times a romance, at times a thriller, always fun if not high brow literature. I will be taking more walks in the woods for this kind of read as I continue to recover from the heavy stuff I have been reading lately.
Next up: Love in the Time of Serial Killers by Alicia Thompson.
I finished the Emily Wilde book quickly, so I turned to my other splurge book. This one was shelved as a romance. Trying not to discard it because of the title, and because of my love for hallmark endings, this was just right for me.
Phoebe Walsh, a PhD candidate in English, has returned to Florida to help her brother clear out their father’s house after he died. She has been disconnected from this place for years, and was estranged from her father for decades. While she is clearing the house, her memories of times here – before her parents divorced – were not great. Now she is focusing on finishing her dissertation on the True Crime genre. We come to learn that Phoebe is a loner, obsessed with Serial Killers, who thinks everyone is one. Then she starts to reconcile what her past was to what she recollected, spending time with her brother, her former best friend, and now the man, Sam, who lives next door to her dad’s house.
While this is a romance, the themes explored include body dysmorphia, self confidence, trust, divorce, and family dynamics. The happy ending is there, just like a hallmark movie. And just like how I love those, I recommend this as a fun read, with surprising depth.
The Source 4 Books 