Genre 📚: YA Fantasy, Romance
Tropes 💁♀️: Faerie courts, Bargains/trickery, Glamour, Half-fae x Mortal
Rep ✔️: Queer main character, queer side character
CW ⚠️: Kidnapping, torture, blood/violence, emotional and physical abuse
Rating ⭐️: 4.5/5
So, straight-up: I’ve never been a fae girly. Sure, I loved FernGully and Barbie: Fairytopia as a kid, but that was as far as my interest went. (I was more enchanted by vampires and ghosts.) It was hard for me to latch onto any fae books — and I tried. I even tried the ACOTAR series, and it just wasn’t for me. But I’m no quitter, and I’m still determined to find titles I do like. With Sophie Gonzales’s fantasy debut, I believe I may have found one.
In This Wild Wanting, the FMC Calla lives in captivity. Her father, a powerful fae and greedy merchant, stole her from her family when she was a baby. She’s now forced to work in her father’s potion shop, watching customers trade precious things for his spells. Precious things like a memory or a skill or freaking years of their life. MMC Declan is desperate for one of these spells, but he’s not willing to give away a whole chunk of his life. So he befriends Calla and together, they make a plan for him to steal a potion.
The couple have a fun dynamic, Declan being impulsive AF and Calla literally having to hold him back from getting them both in trouble. But, unfortunately, Declan’s recklessness wins out. He makes a mistake that has Calla’s father out for blood. At this point, Declan and Calla have gotten to know each other… they care about each other… and they would do anything to keep each other safe. Which leads to a merry-go-round of them essentially going “I’ll save you,” “No, I’ll save you,” “No, I’LL save you, dammit!”
At every turn, when something would go wrong, I was legitimately terrified for them. And as they were having their frustrating (though sweet) self-sacrificing speeches, I wanted to drag them to safety myself. They were such idiots in love. But as they fought back against the fae’s trickery, they found ways to be smart. Sophie Gonzales threw out a lot of twists, especially near the end, and I was pleasantly surprised every time.
Glad I finally found a fantasy about faeries that clicked with me. Maybe it was the flawed characters, maybe it was the desperate yearning (for both romantic love and familial love). Or maybe I just vibe with Sophie’s storytelling. All I know is, I want more.
**Much thanks to NetGalley and Wednesday Books for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review. This Wild Wanting will be released on November 17, 2026.
