The Emily Wilde books are part of my Hugo nominee reading list. I found the second book amusing and fun to read. The plot engine works well: Emily and Wendell flee Cambridge after publishing groundbreaking research, pursued by Wendell's homicidal stepmother who wants to eliminate him as a rival claimant to the faerie throne. They rescue two missing academics trapped in faerie limbo, then Emily ventures into Wendell's kingdom to retrieve his cat—the only thing that can cure him of mysterious poisoning. She agrees to marry him. They reclaim his throne. The adventure elements are engaging, the stakes escalate pleasantly, and there's genuine pleasure in the narrative momentum.
Fawcett's interiority remains primarily Emily's, though a section where Wendell writes in her journal gives us his voice—a good choice that shows rather than tells his emotional investment. The relationships with the "small ones" (Poe and the new character Snowbell) gain depth and genuine affection. Supporting characters like Emily's niece Ariadne and department chair Farris Rose function primarily as plot devices. Rose begins as an antagonist wanting to fire both Emily and Wendell, but after the assassination attempt and magical fiasco in Wendell's class, he joins the trip and becomes an ally. Both characters are so flat and superfluous that removing them from the story would not materially change the narrative.
But the central problem persists: there is no real chemistry between Emily and Wendell. Emily finds him physically attractive: he has the prettiest golden locks and his green eyes make her lose composure. But that very marginal physical attraction exists alongside a fundamental mismatch in how they value and experience the world. Wendell is pathologically tidy, finds deep satisfaction in decorating and arranging spaces, attributes this to "house elf" ancestors. Emily observes that his efforts make spaces feel better, but she doesn't feel the drive to do it herself. She appreciates the outcome without understanding or sharing what motivates him. When she's shocked at how much better a space feels after he moves the rug and cleans the floor, she's making an intellectual observation, not experiencing genuine connection with his values.
This echoes the first book: he decorated the cottage and said "if you don't understand, you may never get it." She still doesn't understand. He continues performing emotional and domestic labor while she benefits and observes without meeting him. This includes tailoring and enchanting her clothing items so that she is protected but also looks more stylish. There’s a lot of repeated emphasis on Emily being “mousy” and unattractive. The "opposites attract" framework doesn't create interesting friction or genuine connection, just one-directional emotional labor that the book frames as romance. Wendell's "unrequited love finally requited" arc resolves with Emily agreeing to marry him while he is unconscious and because it solves a practical problem and she's attracted to him, not because she's actually reciprocating his emotional investment.
There's also a darker undercurrent: enchantments work like being roofied or groomed. Emily experiences memory gaps, foggy recollection, loss of agency when enchanted. The book treats enchantment similarly to predatory grooming—what happens to her with Wendell's stepmother, what the ice king did to her in Book 1. Having her agree to marriage with a faerie king after experiencing that kind of violation, without the book explicitly reckoning with the trauma or consent issues, is troubling. The romantic resolution doesn't acknowledge the gravity of what's been done to her. There's an implied sex scene in a tent in the Alps (Wendell uses magic to enchant her cloak into comfortable bedding), but it's not graphic—it codes as Young Adult despite the kidnapping, roofying, and manipulation throughout.
The anachronisms continue and deepen. Everyone wears cloaks constantly, but historical photos from 1900-1910 show people in snowy regions wore winter coats and jackets, not cloaks. It's another example of using historical aesthetic detail: cloaks feel old-fashioned and atmospheric but demonstrate either a lack of understanding of what people actually wore or failing to establish this aesthetic for this alt universe. This joins the real taxonomy words for invented faerie classifications and the other tonal inconsistencies from Book 1. The "cozy" label seems to mean "not dystopian" rather than actually cozy; the book is clearly a fantasy mystery/thriller with romantic elements, and the romance isn't working.
If Book 3 continues with zero chemistry as the baseline and expects readers to accept "he loves her, therefore they belong together" as sufficient romance, I'm not interested. The adventure plot can only carry so much weight.
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