Heather Fawcett writes from Vancouver Island, off the coast of British Columbia, and her books wander cheerfully across the age ranges — fantasy for adults, teens and children alike. She read English Literature to Master's level and Archaeology before that, which perhaps explains why her stories keep one boot in the library and one in the field. Her novels, she has noted, somehow all end up with a dragon in them somewhere; they have been translated into more than twenty languages and have carried her onto the New York Times, USA Today and Sunday Times bestseller lists.
For a cosy reader, the natural way in is the Emily Wilde series — academic faerie fantasy told in diary entries, all woodsmoke and footnotes and a slow, exasperated thaw between two scholars who would rather not admit they like each other. If you are wondering where to begin, or what order to read her books in, the simplest answer is to start at the beginning and let the encyclopaedia lead you on.
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Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries
A brilliant, gloriously antisocial scholar arrives in a frozen northern village to catalogue its faeries, and records it all in field notes that grow steadily warmer despite herself. Snowdrifts, folklore that bites, and an infuriating academic rival who keeps turning up. Read it when you want woodsmoke, cleverness and a slow thaw.
Where to start
Begin with Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries (2023). It is the first book in her bestselling flagship series and the warmest door into her work: a brilliant, gloriously unsociable Cambridge scholar of faeries decamps to a remote, snowbound northern village to finish her field encyclopaedia, and finds her notes growing steadily warmer despite the infuriating academic rival who keeps turning up. If it charms you, the rest of the series is waiting.
Heather Fawcett’s books
Emily Wilde, a brilliant and prickly Cambridge scholar of faeries, travels to a remote northern village to finish her field encyclopaedia — and ends up sharing the work with Wendell Bambleby, her charming, infuriating academic rival. The book that opens Fawcett's flagship cosy series, and the one to read first.
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The second Emily Wilde novel, told in the same diary-entry style, as Emily and Wendell's faerie scholarship draws them deeper into the realms of the Folk. A slow-burn academic fantasy for when you want to stay in their company a little longer.
The third book, in which Emily and Wendell's story moves into the faerie courts. Fawcett first meant it to close the series as a trilogy.
The fourth Emily Wilde novel, announced for January 2027, which brings the original cast back for a slightly darker but still cosy turn. Not yet published, so one to look forward to if you have fallen for the series.
A standalone adult cosy romantasy set in 1920s Montreal, where Agnes Aubert runs a rescue for street cats and is obliged to share her new premises with a grouchy magician — the failed dark lord Havelock Renard. Cats, pastries and gentle magic.
A middle-grade, witchy reimagining of Anne of Green Gables: an unwanted orphan witch named Grace apprentices herself to a cabin-dwelling witch, and must learn every spell in the grimoire before the cherry trees blossom or lose her magic for good.
Fawcett's debut, and a different mood — a young-adult adventure set in a Himalaya-inspired empire, where the aspiring explorer Kamzin is hired to climb Raksha, the deadliest mountain in the realm, facing avalanches, ghosts and dark secrets. Higher-stakes survival fantasy rather than cosy comfort, if you fancy a colder wind.
Good questions
Read them in publication order: Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries (2023), then Emily Wilde's Map of the Otherlands (2024), then Emily Wilde's Compendium of Lost Tales (2025). A fourth, Emily Wilde's History of Dark Faerie, is due in January 2027.
Three so far, with a fourth — Emily Wilde's History of Dark Faerie — announced for January 2027. Fawcett originally intended the Compendium of Lost Tales to round things off as a trilogy, so book four is a welcome encore.
It is firmly cosy fantasy — diary-style faerie scholarship, all woodsmoke and footnotes — with a slow-burn relationship between Emily and her rival Wendell Bambleby. The romance is very much a slow burn rather than a rush.
Both. The Emily Wilde books are a series, best read in order, while novels like The Grace of Wild Things and Agnes Aubert's Mystical Cat Shelter are standalones you can pick up in any order. Her earlier young-adult books, beginning with Even the Darkest Stars (2017), are a separate series of their own.
If you love the cosy, bookish, lightly academic warmth of Emily Wilde, browse our Cosy Corner and our Whimsy & Folklore shelf — that is exactly the corner of fantasy these books live in.
It is her 2026 standalone, a cosy romantasy set in 1920s Montreal. Agnes Aubert runs a shelter for street cats and is forced to share her new premises with a grouchy magician, the failed dark lord Havelock Renard — cue cats, pastries and gentle magic.
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