Thank you to NetGalley and Del Rey Books for an e-ARC of Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries, by Heather Fawcett! This is such an atmospheric read - you can feel yourself cozied up in Emily and Wendell's cabin, braving a Scandinavian winter while you untangle dark faerie magic that has ensnared the locals. Written entirely as diary entries (primarily from Emily's perspective, with a few entries from Wendell), the plot gradually darkens as we sense threats not only to the villagers but to our heroine, Emily, a frankly brilliant faerie scholar and scientist... and absolute dummy when she has to *express or interpret emotions of any kind*.

What I enjoyed:
✨ Wendell! He reminds me of Colin from A Week to be Wicked by Tessa Dare. A beautiful, witty rake absolutely head over heels for the uptight genius who pretends to hate him.
✨ The setting. This village comes to life through Emily and Wendell's entries, and it's such a unique setting for this story (and Wendell's constant underlying bitterness about the cold beauty is so well executed).

My only struggle in this was accepting the first-person diary entries as our construct. I was pulled out of the story too often as I wondered whether or not someone would ever actually know they had thought of something "distantly" in their own personal reflection, or if a scientist would describe the crunching of the snow as she sought out the common folk in the woods, or if anyone actually writes out extensive dialogue between themselves and others in their own journal? The format also limited the suspense when the plot darkened, and that felt like a missed opportunity. It was such a unique concept, it's just not one I loved personally.