A fun read. I loved the steampunk/sci-fi elements to the book.

The world building and found family (my favorite in books) was done really well.

This was definitely for a younger crowd. Emilie did read really young at some points, but she is 16. My younger self would’ve ate this up.

I still liked it, but I think I would have enjoyed this more if I was a bit younger.

Thank you NetGalley and Tor Publishing for this eARC.

Thank you NetGalley, Tor, and Martha Wells for this ARC of The Emilie Adventures.

I've loved Martha Wells' sci-fi works and fell in love with Murderbot from the second page of the first entry. I've had less effusive praise for Ms. Wells' fantasy in the past, but the Emilie Adventures was a strong outing. As the reader gets to know Emilie, it's easy to get lost in her story and find oneself transported several hours into the future when next you look up, without having noticed the passage of real-world time at all.

This was my first time reading Martha Wells' fantasy books. I am obsessed with The Murderbot Diaries so I was very interested when I saw The Emilie Adventures. Overall I really enjoyed The Emilie Adventures! This book contains two full length novels and follows a teenaged Emilie.

In the first book Emilie is unhappy with her life and decides to run away from her aunt and uncle in an attempt to meet up with her cousin. Of course it all goes wrong with Emilie boarding the wrong ship and ending up in a new world. I was really reminded of Jules Verne novels with the adventure, world, and creatures. I really enjoyed Emilie's character but felt the world building wasn't as strong as Wells' sci-fi books.

The second book for me wasn't as strong as the first but I still really enjoyed the adventure. I love that we see two different experiences with Emilie. I did enjoy seeing the crew again and love their found family relationship.

Overall I enjoyed The Emilie Adventures and loved reading some of Martha Wells fantasy books for the first time. I think the writing style and worlds are really creative and unique, but this story is definitely for a younger audience. Very excited to read more from Martha Wells!

Thank you NetGalley and Tor Publishing Group for this eARC!

Thank you to NetGalley and Tor Publishing for providing me an Advanced Reader Copy in exchange for an honest review!

The Emilie Adventures is two separate books by Martha Wells. Emilie and the Hollow World and Emilie and the Sky World.

In the first novel, Emilie is running away from home. She’s lived with her aunt and uncle and at the age of 16 she’s finally had enough. She attempts to run away to a school where her cousin is but accidentally boards the wrong ship! Shortly after casting off, the ship goes to a new world within the planet, the Hollow World. While there, the ship is damaged and it’s believed to be sabotage. Will the crew be able to fix the ship and return home?

This books is like Journey to the Center of the Earth meets Treasure Planet, except the treasure is more like a discovery, so maybe Atlantis?? It has a ton of found family vibes for sure. This book was fun and I enjoyed the expansive characters. The world building wasn’t my favorite and I feel Wells does a better job in a sci-fi setting than a fantasy setting when it comes to this. Her characters were enjoyable, however, everything does not need to be spoon fed to the reader. Overall, I gave the first book 4/5 stars.

In the second novel, the crew is back together along with some new faces. This time, instead of going down, we are going up! The crew discovers a lost ship in the sky and is thrust into a whole new adventure with new creatures and new worlds!

With a similar feel of the first book, we get the same comparison as the first (JttCotE/Treasure Planet/Atlantis) but with a new twist! This book wasn’t as strong as the first and gave a lot less for the reader to imagine and more hand feeding the information. The story felt geared for a younger audience than the first book which was a bit of a drawback. Overall, I gave the second book 3/5 stars!

Thank you to Tor for the e-ARC.

4.25 stars for a wholly enjoyable early YA/middle-grade fantasy adventure duology in one edition.

The characters endear, a family is found, interesting worlds are built (aka endearing characters, found family, and excellent scifi/steampunk fantasy worldbuilding).

Emilie has chutzpah, a yearning for adventure, and a chip on her shoulder. She desperately wants a life more exciting than the one her aunt and uncle are determined to confine her in, but isn’t a perfectly skilled or courageous heroine, though she rises to the occasion.

My only real complaint is that the pacing dragged in some bits. But the second of the two books was really excellent and Hyacinth was a top-tier character.

From the publisher: Two YA steampunk adventures from the author of the wildly successful Murderbot Diaries.

The Emilie Adventures contains two full-length fantasy novels. Teenaged Emilie lives with her uncle and brothers and is extremely unhappy at home. Her uncle insults her and her brothers don’t respect her. She decides to run away from home and go help her cousin run a school for girls. But things don’t go exactly to plan.

What follows is two adventures right out of Jules Verne. The tales remind me very much of Journey to the Center of the Earth and Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, only updated and featuring a female main character. Emilie plans to stow away on a ship to get to her cousin but accidentally stows away on the wrong ship – the very wrong ship. During an attack by another crew, Emilie sees her first non-human (with black fur, glittery scales, and pointed teeth) and finds herself delving under the sea to another world. The second adventure features an ascent into the sky and yet another world.

The best way I can describe The Emilie Adventures is sweetly old-fashioned. I was surprised to see that the two stories were originally published in 2013 and 2014. They feel like they were written forty years ago. They are also marketed as young adult, but they feel more like kids books than teen books to me. (The only thing any parent could possibly object to in The Emilie Adventures is the barely-mentioned-in-passing fact that two men were in love years ago before breaking up and marrying women.)

Emilie is plucky and resourceful but also very smart. She meets magicians and adventurers, sailors and more aliens. Most of the people are some shade of brown, and there are plenty of other resourceful women. Emilie is also a reader of romantic adventures stories and draws on them when she finds herself inside of one. The tales were a lot of fun – both familiar and unfamiliar.

I read an advance reader copy of The Emilie Adventures from NetGalley. The books are being republished because of the popularity of the author’s Murderbot Diaries series. The Emilie Adventures will be available at the Galesburg Public Library.

These were certainly adventurous and fun! I think my niece would really enjoy these, as it's obvious they are for a younger crowd. But I mean that in a good way! It was still a fun read for me, and I thoroughly enjoyed Emilie's interactions with the other characters, as well as her development. At times, she did seem a bit like she was just going along with the crowd, but she did take initiative in other times! A fun read!

These stories are fabulous and great reading for young adults (and adults too!) Set in a world of airships and futuristic occurrences, young Emilie accidentally falls into a fantastic adventure. Emilie has run away from her uncle, who she lives with, because he thinks she is worthless and wants to be like her mother ,who ran away to be an actress. He wants Emilie to make a good marriage or become a respectable governess as young women do in Victorian times. Emilie plans to join her cousin at her school in the next port, but when she gets to port she doesn't have enough money for the ferry. She stows away on a ship. Unfortunately the ship is an unusual vehicle that can travel on the aethereal flows and takes her to a land below the earth's surface. She meets strange creatures, get shot at , has all kind of dangerous adventures and barely makes it back to the surface before she takes off in an airship on more dangerous adventures!
It's a raucous blend similar to 200,000 Leagues under the Sea and Journey to the Center of the Earth.
They are enjoyable type of adventures that I wish more authors were skilled at writing. I have also read the author's Murderbot series and find it wonderful reading as well!!!

This book was lovely! I adored Emilie, and her problem-solving reminded me of the Percy Jackson series and seeing how the trio would get out of difficult situations. Truly delightful.

This was fun! I enjoy Martha Wells' writing and this did not disappoint. I am glad these stories are getting a rebrand and will reach more audiences!

"The Emilie Adventures" by Martha Wells is a collection of two YA steampunk stories focused on a teen named Emilie and the adventures that she goes on. The first story is about when she runs away from home and ends up on a ship that is actually headed for the inside of the planet. The second story is another adventure where there is an aetheric disturbance and Emilie and her friends must travel to the Sky World to fix it. Both stories have interesting worlds with a lot of mayhem and adventure. Emilie shows her resourcefulness and bravery in both stories. A recommended purchase for YA collections where fantasy and steampunk are popular.

The Emilie Adventures!!

Next in line for the Martha Wells update and republishing by @tordotcompub

The Emilie Adventures starts with 16 year old Emilie running from her home. Her Aunt and Uncle (who mostly raised her) are sure she will end up being “flighty” like her mother was and Emilie is determined to break free of them. But her plans to assist her cousin at her school fall to pieces as she ends up an accidental stowaway on a steampunk adventure to the Hollow World with a team of sorcerer philosophers. It’s here that she finally figures out what she’s made of and dares to start dreaming bigger.

The second story includes one of her brothers and is a lovely start to some family healing.

Both of these stories was phenomenal. I’ve come to expect great nuanced characters and world building from Martha Wells and this ticked those boxes and then some.

If you want a Jules Verne-esque YA adventure, look no further!

Thanks to @netgalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

These two stories were fantastic! It was so great watching Emilie deal with the situations she's gotten herself into, and to learn from them. She's off on an adventure at every turn!

3.5 Stars. The Emilie Adventures is a duology of Emilie and the Hollow World and Emilie and the Sky World. It is a middle grade steampunk novel that follows a teen girl running away from home. Trying to get out from under the thumb of her bully Uncle, Emilie finds herself as a stowaway on a ship headed to a place she’s never heard about: The Hollow World. This Hollow World resides at the core of her world (a nod to Jules Verne) and the only way to get there is to travel along the aether currents connecting the two. Along the way, Emilie meets new friends, mentors, allies, and enemies in this unique adventure novel. Book two picks up exactly where book one leaves off. Emilie finds herself as the assistant to Ms. Marlendes and finds a portal to another world: The Sky World.

Emilie is a girl I would have worshiped if I had this book around in my tween years. She is smart, confident, stubborn, and a go-getter. She sees a problem and instead of freezing, she does her best to fix it, even when she doesn’t have a ready answer. I spent so many days fantasizing about happening upon an adventure and traveling the world. Emilie got to live this daydream.

I did have a few issues with this book. One being Emilie does read younger than her age. I went back twice to double check her age because I kept visualizing her as 11-13, maybe 14 at the oldest and not 16. Which in turn made me wonder several times “why are they just letting a child do this??” But then realizing she is nearly an adult and might have come across as more mature to the crew. This leads to my other issue of it being a bit unrealistic that as a stowaway on a research ship with zero education, she is allowed in several discussions that were meant to be private to only a few researchers. For me, it reads as something tween me wouldn’t have batted an eye at and believed Emilie just belonged. But as an adult, I’m side-eyeing all of these adults for even letting this child be in very precarious situations, let alone leave the ship at all.

Martha Wells writes beautiful scenery and descriptive passages so well. I loved her worldbuilding and could picture every detail. Her conflict scenes are also amazing and easy to visualize. With how small this book is though, it has taken away from character development. There are so many wonderful characters that are brought in, only to just remain a name and description.This could easily have been a two part, 5-book series (think Fablehaven/Dragonwatch) with just exploring The Hollow World and then the Sky World and all of the beauty each holds. I think that would allow for us to get to know Emilie more and watch her develop deeper emotional connections to the other characters.

Anyone that loves middle-grade steampunk fantasy and/or loves Martha Wells will devour this book. I do think it is geared towards the younger crowd and would be loved by tweens.

Thank you NetGalley and TorPublishing for allowing me to read this book!

Steampunk light with fun characters. Only read the first of the two books in the volume. Will come back to the second later. Quick read on a Sunday afternoon type of story.

This was a great collection of two stories that had that steampunk element that I was looking for. It uses the concept perfectly and was hooked from the first page. Each story was a great element in this world and was engaged with the characters. Martha Wells has a strong writing style and was enjoying the overall story going on.