Emily Wilde's Compendium of Lost Tales is the final chapter of Emily's whimsical, fantasy adventures across the world in the pursuit of her academic career, with an unforgettable cast of companions tagging along. I love Heather Fawcett's brought-together threads from all the other books in this series to weave a fulfilling and satisfying ending to this gorgeous series, unraveling twist by twist with gentle pacing (slower than the previous books to heighten the drama) and some brilliant cameos from beloved characters from book one and two.

The dynamic plot intricately weaves together the deadly political situation in Faerie, dangerous magic afoot in a perilous family feud, and Emily battling her insecurities about becoming a queen, balancing her academic career and her fears for the aging Shadow. It's a roller coaster of emotions, whimsical charm, and immersive storytelling that creates an exciting, engaging read.

The romance between Emily and Wendell blossoms across the three books, showing how far they have grown together as characters on their journeys learning to co-exist, living together as a couple, and setting healthy boundaries for their relationship to balance the human and Fae sides of their natures and needs. You can see in their heartwarming and tender moments how deeply they love and care for each other - they would both give each other the world and destroy it for one another.

Thank you to Little Brown Book Group UK and Orbit for granting me a copy of Emily Wilde's Compendium of Lost Tales. I'm sad this is the final book of this series. Hopefully, Heather will take us back to this wonderful world of whimsical academia in the near future.

I'm really in denial about this book series ending but this was an almost perfect ending to the series to me! The pacing lulled a bit towards the middle and there was less focus on plot and more on Emily's character this go around, but it tied up all the loose ends neatly. While I'm sad to say goodbye to Emily and Wendell, here's to hoping we'll get a novella!

Thank you, Netgalley and the Publisher, for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

"Emily Wilde's Compendium of Lost Tales" is the last adventure undertaken by our beloved scholars, who embark on a perilous journey to claim Wendell's realm and his position as king. Life-threatening menaces stand in their way, and only Emily's analytic mind will be able to protect Wendell and his kingdom from his stepmother's plots.

I won't dwell on the general storyline in this trilogy, for I don't want this review to be spoilery. This last book revolves around Emily's new project: writing a paper about Faerie's tales since they shape the very fabric of their world. Still, she has to focus on this new branch of dryadology due to a dangerous curse tormenting Wendell's realm, and she must find a loophole to free the land and restore peace.
This novel isn't as adventure-packed as the previous two. Instead, the author focused on the changes in Emily's life as the new queen of the Silva Lupi since Wendell took the throne and all the doubts that plagued her regarding Wendell and the risky consequences of his actions. Emily is characterised by her shyness and brilliance, but also by her coolness that may be mistaken for carelessness. Despite that, her utter love for Wendell is unmistakable, and the author described her inner concerns perfectly well, making them reasonable, especially from the point of view of a judicious scholar who tends to face life from an academic perspective.
The plot, however, isn't as predictable as I thought it to be. The ending followed a series of uncanny choices that complement the real sense of the story.
As usual, Wendell and Emily's relationship is core to all the events, and I loved how different and even bizarre it is. Their love is so pure and sincere that it is almost impossible not to care for this couple.

The world-building is deeply suggestive and reflects the unromantic aspects of faeries, diverging from the far more common characterisation that is made today in numerous fantasy novels. I find this portrayal more intriguing and realistic, for it doesn't differ from the folkloristic description of these creatures. The author added a lot of scientific details that depict the scholarly world, and I particularly appreciated all the footnotes emphasising and explaining specific topics.

All in all, I highly recommend this series because, even though the first book is quite weak in my humble opinion, the series gets better and better, and you will surely cherish all of the characters featured in these novels. You should give it a chance if you like cosy fantasy settings and light academia books like A Letter from the Luminous Deep and Half a Soul.

Thank you to Heather Fawcett, NetGalley and Little Brown Books for this e-arc in exchange for an honest review. I have adored the Emily Wilde series of books and Emily Wilde's Compendium of Lost Tales was no exception. I found it a fitting end to the series, albeit there was a slow start and there was a little lack of wonder and magic in the book compared to the previous novels. I really enjoyed the second half and found the love story between Wendall and Emily beautiful and touching.

Overall I really enjoyed the final novel, I love how Emily has grown into herself and accepted herself fully as a Queen of Faerie, romantic bones and all. I hope someday there may be another foray into the faerie realm with another novel about these wholesome characters, and all of Emily's scientific footnotes.

I Will not be reviewing this title as the series became quite stale. The love interest was so far from romanctic it wasnt even funny and I struggled to read this without the audio. Its upsetting because the idea for this book really works and didnt need to have a love interest in it.

This is the last instalment of the fab Emily Wilde series and honestly I have loved every second. Emily is a little sassy, very smart, sharp, and sometimes a little scary ;) It's great getting to see her and Wendell go to reclaim his throne, and his story was great fun, and I thought it played out brilliantly. I don't really know how to say much else without spoiling it, but this is book three. If you're here you already know if this is something you're going to enjoy!

4.25 stars, definitely a series I will be returning to again. I also highly recommend the audiobooks!

Goodbye Emily Wilde. I loved travelling with you to Fairy. Hopefully there will be another book someday. Thank you for the joy of reading these books ❤️

This was a disappointing end. I adored the cosy vibes from the first two books and Wendell, Emily and Shadows adventures were great. This book felt a bit boring in comparison and almost a bit repetitive. I loved these characters so this was a shame but I’m glad I read it regardless.

This is the final book in the Emily Wilde series. This is a very sweet end to the book in terms of Emily and Wendell’s relationship, the romance was definitely my favourite part. I thought parts of the plot had some conveniences to solving conflicts. Overall, a decent end to the series.

A whimsical, atmospheric, and kinda cozy fantasy story with two main characters who are just to die for. They love each ther so sweetly, it was a pleasure to read! For me, a perfect ending to the trilogy! I'm sad that the time in this world has come to an end!

𝗧𝗶𝘁𝗹𝗲: Emily Wilde, book 3: Emily Wilde's Compendium of Lost Tales
𝗔𝘂𝘁𝗵𝗼𝗿: Heather Fawcett
𝗙𝗼𝗿𝗺𝗮𝘁 + 𝗣𝗮𝗴𝗲 𝗰𝗼𝘂𝗻𝘁: Ebook, 368 pages by Orbit

★★

💌 First of all, I would like to thank @NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an ebook in exchange for a honest review. I requested this ebook because I had read the first two instalments in the Emily Wilde series and was curious about the ending of this trilogy.

📖 In Emily Wilde's Compendium of Lost Tales, we follow Emily, the renowned dryadologist, as she studies the inner working of a faerie realm as a queen and as she must unravel Wendell's curse before she loses him for good.

🍄 Well, well, well… The first book in this trilogy made me curious, the second one made me really like this series, and this third one… disappointed me.
I was ready for an epic journey across the lands to cure Wendell, but none of that really happened. The pacing was really slow with very few action scenes scattered here and there in the book. The plot was nonexistent, felt too easy and convenient, and was really centered around Emily. The characters were… bland, to say the least, but it is nice to see a 31 year-old character who acts like it. The writing style feels like a diary (which is not a bad idea at all), but the footnotes were too long and ruined it for me.
I am not usually one to complain or leave bad reviews, but I did not really have much choice with this one. Not a great conclusion to the Emily Wilde series.

Really lovely and charming story with just the most adorable characters you could picture. This felt like a warm hug of a book and I can't wait to see what this author does next. I felt so relaxed reading this and kept reaching for it after a hard day!

Thank you, NetGalley and Little, Brown Book Group UK | Orbit for providing access to the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

That was one hell of a ride that's for sure. But I am so glad I got to experience it.

The love I have for Emily and Wendell is undeniable. I adore them, separately and especially together. They are so different, but it's incredible how well they understand and respect each other. And after this book, their love—and I want to emphasize Emily's because that's been a point of uncertainty for me—is crystal clear. Their love is the quiet but profound type, for sure.

They are the stars of the story, and not just because they are the leads. Out of all the three books, I think that my favourite scenes of them are mostly here.

Still, I'd like to give a special shout-out to Emily's beautiful bond with Shadow. At this point, it's as much a love story as hers with Wendell.

I really enjoyed seeing so many of the characters from the other books make appearances here. It brought everything together, allowing this book to shine as its closing chapter.

The imagery Heather Fawcett managed to craft once again remains as brilliant, disturbing, and artful as ever.

However, as with the other two books in the series, the encyclopedic side of the concept sometimes loses its readers, not permitting a binge-able experience.

All in all, I'm definitely looking forward to getting a FL copy once that edition becomes available.

Thank you to NetGalley and Little Brown Book Group for this ARC. Trilogies can be tricky ones to nail. When I first reviewed Emily Wilde's Encyclopedia of Faeries I was enchanted by the charming conceit and swept away by the story, but when the time came to read Emily Wilde's Map of the Otherlands I was disappointed, finding it lacked the direction and didn't live up to the promise of it's predecessor. However, I was willing to hope that Fawcett was saving the big guns for the climactic series finale and so I eagerly cracked open Emily Wilde's Compendium of Lost Tales. It is with a heavy heart I say that I was disappointed again as I really, really wanted the magic to be recaptured. Unfortunately once again the plot felt meandering and sluggish, the conflict felt confused and the resolutions didn't feel earned. It's still a lovely concept for a book but I think it would have been best left as a standalone novel as I don't feel as if Fawcett had a coherent vision for where she'd take a series.

Tercera y última entrega de la saga de Emily Wilde, con la que Heather Fawcett nos ofrece un estupendo colofón a una saga entrañable y deliciosa, que empezaba a sufrir algunos síntomas de agotamiento.


Como toda dryadologist (estudioso de las hadas) que se precie, Emily no pierde oportunidad de investigar sobre el curiosísimo mundo feérico, pero desde el principio de la saga su interés pasa de ser meramente académico a algo más terrenal. Resulta un poco complicado hablar sobre este libro sin destrozar la historia de los anteriores, pero lo que sí se puede decir es que la autora sigue ahondando en las tradiciones orales de las relaciones entre humanos y hadas y otros seres mágicos para su relato. En esta ocasión, sin duda buscando cerrar hilos que quizá habían quedado sueltos con anterioridad, Fawcett utilizará personajes que quizá habían quedado en el olvido pero que vuelven a aportar su granito de arena para la resolución de los problemas que acosan a Emily y a su pareja, Wendell Bambleby.

La historia de amor entre ambos sigue siendo el cemento que une todos los elementos de la historia, aderezado con algunos momentos francamente cómicos sobre todo en relación con el comportamiento de los académicos estudiosos de las hadas, capaces de estar pensando en tal o cual artículo que se podría publicar cuando su vida pende de un hilo. Es especialmente gracioso que Emily se queje en un momento determinado de las notas a pie de página de otros estudiosos, cuando en estos mismos libros que estamos leyendo es un recurso muy utilizado. Me encanta esa capacidad para reírse de una misma de la que hace gala la canadiense. Pero la escritora también aprovecha el final del libro para hacernos pensar en el coste de la redención y de la venganza, cómo parece que muchas veces estamos obligados a repetir los errores de nuestros ancestros.

Me gusta bastante cómo algunos capítulos pasan de ser narrados a ser extractos de diarios personales o, directamente, cartas. El estilo epistolar algo florido que asociamos al mundo académico de la época victoriana está aquí perfectamente reflejado, ofreciéndonos una alternativa al punto de vista de la propia Emily, que es la que lleva prácticamente toda la carga de la novela sobre sus hombros. Esto implica que en algunas ocasiones el ritmo de la novela se ralentice, bien sea durante las investigaciones de Emily, bien sea durante los cambios de escenario necesarios para el desarrollo de la historia. También es cierto que los giros de la novela y las condiciones necesarias para que todo llegue a buen puerto son un poco excesivamente convenientes, como si una mano mágica fuera allanando el camino de la aventura.

Aunque se supone que es el final de la trilogía, no descartaría que se sacaran más títulos en el mismo universo.

I really loved this world but the plot of this book felt slow to me. I did really like reading about the characters that I fell in love with.

There were touches that I liked about this book, but they never really felt like they were congealing into a coherent story. The main idea -- that politics in fairy does not follow any kind of recognizable political theory, but rather is governed by the structure of folk tales -- was a nice one, but it struggled against, ironically enough, expectations of how stories are supposed to go. Specifically, the last book ends with Wendell and Emily heading off to reclaim Wendell's kingdom, and in this book they just . . . rock up and take it. That whole reclaiming the throne plot bit ends up a nonissue, which feels like a missing tread in the staircase of the plot's rising action. Also, the weird wild unknowability of fairies is dramatically tamped down in this book, where the fairies are not otherworldly creatures following orange and green morality (as they were in books 1 and 2), but are instead a set of gawky courtiers who always gather to watch plot events happen, as if for their entertainment. Actually, I did rather enjoy how they always show up to gawp at things, complete with snack-sellers -- but the point is it undermines the things that make fairies weird. Everythign was just a bit too cuddly and comprehensible-to-humans in this book, given how we've been trained to view fairies in the others.

I adore this series and these characters. These books don’t translate into a simple story but into an experience. The writing and the ambience revolving around them are simply so rich and beautiful it captures you wholeheartedly making you wish you were actually in those places.

The characters are all so endearing you can’t help but love them. This book’s storyline was different than the two before but still imbued in all the things that makes me love the series. There was a plot twist that i definitely wasn’t expecting to come up in this setting but definitely added to the lore.

I loved how Heather Fawcett wrapped things up and chose to have a full circle moment. It felt right to have it wrap up this way.

While there was quite a slow start, Fawcett's writing really shines through in the second half, and especially towards the end. I loved getting to know the characters better, and seeing many of my favourites reappear! A really great addition to the world, with many satisfying answers to previous questions. Another great dive into the folklore!

Saying goodbye to these characters was hard. I have loved Emily and Shadow from the very first page of this series, came to love Wendell just as much.
I have to admit I was a bit worried that the tone would be different in this book, with Emily now being a queen of Fairie, I was afraid the academia side of this story would be put on the back burner, but it really wasn’t.
Seeing Emily’s scholarly dedication to solve the problems they encounter made my heart melt for her all over again. Seeing her grow into herself, fully accepting her neurodivergent self with managing to stray out of her comfort zone sometimes was heartwarming. And her love for Shadow brought me to tears so many times.
I loved the fact that the romance was more present in this last book and I loved even more that Emily and Wendell’s love was so tender. Emily isn’t an overtly romantic person and seeing her happy with Wendell was everything.

I was only a bit disappointed in the new characters, that, while interesting, I didn’t really get attached to as I had in the first two books. Seeing all our beloved characters again in this last installment was such a treat. I was sad to leave them, closing the book was bittersweet and I hope we’ll get a few glimpses of them here and there in the future.