In the Wake of Evil

In Stephanie Dean’s In the Wake of Evil, the once-vibrant town of Snickerdoodle—home to dandelion-born fairies, leaf-born pixies, unicorns, and humans—collapses into ruin after a forbidden friendship blossoms between the benevolent fairy Amethyst and the gentle pixie Bartholomew Jahosephat. After Bartholomew accidentally brews a transporting potion that sends him to Alabama, where he guards the human infant Chloe from her greedy uncle Winston, he returns to Snickerdoodle only to be betrayed by the envious fairy Onyx. Stripped of her gemstone name and renamed Lonora, she exposes the friendship to Pixie King Lucien, triggering Bartholomew’s execution by guillotine and a devastating war between species. What happens next is explosive as Amethyst’s grief takes a whole new dimension.

Dean crafts a moralistic fairy tale sustained by vividly distinct characters: Amethyst’s boundless compassion hardens into vengeful despair after Bartholomew’s death, while the pixie’s unwavering kindness makes his execution even painful to watch. Onyx—later renamed Lonora when her gemstone name is stripped—is the symbol of the story’s main theme, drawn from the “two wolves” parable Amethyst teaches her: every being must choose which wolf to feed. The pacing accelerates from whimsical world-building, Pixietopias, bubbling potion laboratories, and living wallpaper, to brutal battle scenes, though the Alabama interlude briefly disrupts the momentum. Dean’s storytelling is rich in detail, and readers are treated to imagery like the cinnamon-scented, polychrome streets of Snickerdoodle and the final drab, thunderous gray that follows. While the tone occasionally recalls the grim stakes of Holly Black’s The Cruel Prince and the romantic-sacrifice beats of Sarah J. Maas’s A Court of Thorns and Roses, Dean’s voice remains more fable than epic, delivering a warning about the consequences of hatred.