I was completely unaware that Emily Wilde’s adventure continued in Heather Fawcett’s Map of the Otherlands. It seems silly to admit because Fawcett left the door slightly ajar at the end of book one, but it ended on a satisfying note that didn’t inspire me to explore further. Still, I was more than ready to accompany Emily on her next research trip. his time, Emily’s sights were set on the Austrian Alps for the love of discovery and, well, love itself. Spoilers ahead for book one, so tread carefully.
Emily Wilde may have achieved tenure at Cambridge, but she’s far from done. She started a new project that serves her scholarly goals and helps her colleague and potential fiancé, Dr. Wendell Bambleby. Emily wants to create a map of the known faerie realms, and it just so happens she needs to help Wendell find a door into his realm as well. Some progress has been made using the extensive university archives, but the assassination attempts on Wendell’s life sped up Emily’s plans. In a race against whatever dastardly deeds Wendell’s stepmother has planned, the duo returns to the field with new companions in tow to try to survive the vicious fae who have made their home in the Alps.
It felt good to be back in Emily’s world with Shadow’s steady presence and Wendell’s flair for the dramatic. This time, we get to spend a little more time with Emily at Cambridge, where she teaches classes, researches new projects, and deals with her scholarly counterparts. But it’s not long before faerie mischief pushes Emily out the door and into the field once again. In book one, Emily stumbles into discoveries and unknowable dangers, but in book two, the events seem to happen to her instead which on the surface serves as a nice evolution of the narrative. This is because Wendell has a target on his back, but the setup and the mystery didn’t feel as magical or exciting this time around. Most of the time, Emily runs into dead ends and sits around, bemoaning her lack of progress. This dragged the story down a lot for me, and it wasn’t until the end, when the time was out and desperations were high, that Emily started to make some moves to get the story going.
In Otherlands, we also get an expanded cast, which was needed for the story, but unfortunately, not everyone played an interesting role. Emily and Wendell are joined by the head of Cambridge’s dryadology department, Dr. Farris Rose, and Emily’s niece and student, Ariadne. Both characters were minor but at least gave Emily someone else to interact with because Wendell’s presence and the village’s inhabitants were minor in comparison to book one. Dr. Rose was an interesting thorn in Emily’s side because he was a cautious and more traditional scholar. While Wendell found Emily’s methods endearing, Dr. Rose thought her careless and rash. However, I wish Dr. Rose was more prominent because he was the only one who saw Emily’s trust in the fae as dangerous, and his sporadic warnings made the stakes feel more real and terrifying.
Now for poor Ariadne. I don’t know why she was in this story except to be the object of Emily’s cruelty and ire. Emily is a curmudgeonly scholar whose introverted tendencies are normally endearing, but her treatment of Ariadne in this story is something else entirely. Emily was awful, truly awful, towards this young woman. This was made even worse because Ariadne did not bring much to the story either. She was a glorified assistant who disappeared into the background unless she was needed to annoy Emily with her existence. There doesn’t seem to be a purpose for this treatment either. I thought at first Emily might be jealous of Ariadne being in awe of and interacting with Wendell, but that didn’t truly manifest in a meaningful way. Emily feared her niece being too inexperienced with the fae, but she never seemed to want to dissuade her from studying dryadology. Emily simply loves to lash out at Ariadne, and because of this, I liked Emily a lot less in book two, and I question how high her “Rate My Professor” ratings were at Cambridge.
Overall, Emily Wilde’s Map of the Otherlands was a fitting sequel despite the lagging middle section and the viciousness toward Ariadne. Book two was able to keep its fun, scholarly bent to faerie while expanding on the world and Wendell’s background. There’s an opportunity to explore the events in Otherlands even further in another book, and I won’t hesitate to pick it up when Emily receives funding for that research trip.
Rating: Emily Wilde’s Map Of The Otherlands – 6.5/10
-Brandee
I received an ARC of this book in exchange for an unbiased review. The thoughts on this story are my own.
