Emily Wilde is a planned trilogy in the adult fantasy genre that combines traits of both the cozy fantasy and dark academia subgenres. The first installment, Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries (2023), follows Emily Wilde as she journeys to Hrafnsvik, Ljosland, with her dog, Shadow—glamoured and secretly a faerie species called a grim—to research the elusive “Hidden Ones”—a winter species of trooping fae who inhabit the region. Emily Wilde has spent nine years compiling research for the faerie encyclopaedia she wishes to publish and the Hidden Ones are her last entry. Shortly after arriving, her work rival, Wendell Bambleby—a fellow professor at Cambridge whom she suspects to be one of the High Ones, or the courtly fae—arrives to aid in her research.

With the help of Wendell, the antisocial Emily begrudgingly befriends the townsfolk—specifically two women, Lilja and Margret—and one of the little ones, Poe, who lives in a tree and eventually offers to become Emily’s fjolskylda—a human that common faeries dedicate themselves to helping, a bond which sometimes extends to the human’s family or loved ones as well. Emily catches the attention of the Hidden Ones’ king—who’s been cursed to remain trapped in a tree for eternity—and frees him, bringing his unintentional snowy-wrath down upon Hrafnsvik when the full extent of his power is released.