The faerie world in this book reminded me of Holly Black's "The Cruel Prince". Fawcette chooses the version of mischievous fae, unruly and clever fae. The town she creates adjacent to the faerie realm is homey; residents are sweet. There is something alluring about the setup, a field researcher's relationship to myth. Unfortunately, I also see a few glaring weaknesses.

Can we please end this trope of unexperienced, aloof woman falling for an egotistical, lazy, sexually promiscuous man who "shows her new things" she's perfectly capable of doing herself. Wendell has no redeeming qualities. I see no reason for Emily falling for him other than their having spent so much time together in close proximity. He's rude and disrespectful to her. We're supposed to pity him for having to leave his home, yet I rooted against him constantly. He claims to love her yet flirts with other women (in front of her, of course) and brings back unnamed women to their shared cabin to sleep with and abandon. He's a jerk.

Where's my Emily-Finn relationship.

How am I supposed to like him at all? He's problematic, to say the least.

Things work out too well, too easily. Some predicaments are too convenient; like Fawcette had a scene she wanted to write but didn't know how to get the character into that situation, so she made it just...happen. Someone is always there to save the day at exactly the time they need to be there. Fawcette is a master of "tell, not show", quite literally explaining every discovery or situation as if she doubts the reader's intelligence and ability to make connections. 

Emily herself rides this line of almost being interesting, but then reverts to helpless and trope-like. Her objectivity is supposed to differentiate her from other protagonists; Fawcette tries to show us how brutal she can be for science. But she just isn't. She has a thought or two about being selfish, about the discoveries to be made, then immediately shows a conscience because we can't have a female character too harsh. 

I wanted to like this more. There is so much praise for this novel and I just didn't feel it. I am tempted to read the next book to see if any of these things are remedied, but I can't say I have high hopes for a change of heart. This books sits solidly in the mid for me; I enjoyed it, but it's good, not great.