Edgewood by Kristen Ciccarelli
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Music is life for Emeline Lark. Chasing her dream of becoming a singer-songwriter, she left her small town of Edgewood behind, moving to the city.
No matter how far she goes however, she’s constantly reminded of home. As she performs, with the music coursing through her, she can smell the damp woods of Edgewood; moss and other flora have even been known to sprout from the stage at her feet.
Emeline does her best to ignore it. She feels like in order to succeed, she has break ties with the past.
When she receives news from a friend, however, that her beloved Grandfather has disappeared, she hightails it back to join the search. He is the only family she has left; she can’t lose him too.
With just days left before Emeline is set to go on her first tour, as the opener for one of her favorite bands, she needs to find Pa quickly, so she can return to the city and the life she’s built for herself there.
Edgewood is undeniably a quirky little town, full of superstitions. It doesn’t take long for Emeline to discover that there may actually be something to all the local lore and thus, a more magical than mundane reason for her Pa’s disappearance.
Unexpectedly, she finds herself following her only lead, a mysterious orb left on her Grandfather’s pillow, said to be evidence of a tithe paid to the Wood King.
Into the woods she goes and a fairy tale is born!
I really enjoyed my time with this audiobook. I knew going in that Ciccarelli’s writing is fantastic and that she knows how to sweep her Readers away into another world. I loved her entire Iskari series and feel it’s highly underrated in the YA Fantasy space.
In this story, I enjoyed how modern it felt. I actually didn’t know too much about it going in and assumed it was set entirely in a Fantasy world.
I was pleasantly surprised to learn that Emeline is a girl very much of our world, who travels to a magical realm to perform a quest; to find her beloved Grandfather who has been stolen away.
This is one of my favorite set-ups for magical stories. It gives me nostalgic Labyrinth vibes and I’m so here for it. Also, it felt sort of Beauty and the Beast reminiscent as well towards the beginning, which is another one of my favorites.
Edgewood gave me many good feels throughout. There was a lot packed into this story; numerous reveals and great growth of character for Emeline.
On a more serious note, I really enjoyed how Ciccarelli explored the relationship between Emeline and her Grandfather. When he started losing his memory, he became unable to live on his own and Emeline had to make the decision to have him placed in a home.
This is such a tough real life issue; one that hits particularly close to home for me. Emeline struggles with guilt surrounding her decision and I appreciated that Ciccarelli included that. Instead of making it glossy and pretty, you could really get a sense of the complexity of Emeline’s feelings. This hasn’t been as easy for her as it may first appear.
In spite of that heavier points in the narrative, this also managed to be magical and fun. There were many great mythical beings, a deal with the Wood King, a long-standing curse and the truth of Emeline’s past coming to light.
Oh, and also, a sweet romance. That’s probably what some of y’all are here for. It was swoon-worthy, a little heartbreaking, yet also uplifting. It was really good, although not my personal favorite aspect of the overall story.
At this point, I will pick up anything Ciccarelli writes. Her imagery is stunning and she never fails to guide me out of reality for a while.
Thank you so much to the publisher, Macmillan Audio, for providing me with an audio ARC to read and review. I’m already excited to see what Ciccarelli comes up with next!!
