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Lychford #3
A Long Day in Lychford
A Long Day in Lychford is the third book in Paul Cornell's increasingly popular Witches of Lychford series.
It's a period of turmoil in Britain, with the country's politicians electing to remove the UK from the European Union, despite ever-increasing evidence that the public no longer supports it. And the small town of Lychford is suffering.
But what can three rural witches do to guard against the unknown? And why are unwary hikers being led over the magical borders by their smartphones' mapping software? And is the European question *really* important enough to kill for?
At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
128 pages, Kindle Edition
First published October 10, 2017
48 people are currently reading
979 people want to read
About the author
Paul Cornell
616 books1,501 followersPaul Cornell is a British writer of science fiction and fantasy prose, comics and television. He's been Hugo Award-nominated for all three media, and has won the BSFA Award for his short fiction, and the Eagle Award for his comics. He's the writer of Saucer Country for Vertigo, Demon Knights for DC, and has written for the Doctor Who TV series. His new urban fantasy novel is London Falling, out from Tor on December 6th.
via Wikipedia @ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Cor...
via Wikipedia @ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Cor...
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 177 reviews
November 19, 2017
What happened? This novella has nothing of the charm that the previous novella had. I was looking forward to reading the next installment in this series and it took me several times to finish it because I just couldn't find the storyline remotely interesting. Brexit, people that are disappearing, and three witches that find themselves the only ones that can find and bring everything back to normal. The only plus was that at the end did we get some more answers to what is going on, and that there is someone out there with some devious plan.
As you probably can tell was this novella not to my liking, and I hope the next one is better!
I want to thank the publisher for providing me with a free copy through NetGalley for an honest review!
As you probably can tell was this novella not to my liking, and I hope the next one is better!
I want to thank the publisher for providing me with a free copy through NetGalley for an honest review!
Read
October 14, 2017Probably the first dark fantasy to tackle Brexit, in a tale about destroyed boundaries and fear of the outside. This is a great series, with three lovely female leads, vividly written. This one was a bit message heavy perhaps, but then again the feeling of wanting to weep and claw at the walls at the goddamn stupidity of everything was very familiar, and vividly done.
October 29, 2017
Same great town. Same great characters but this one just did not have the same magic to it. Still good just the weakest of the three.
June 3, 2021
The Brexit vote is about to take place in this 3rd volume and tensions are high in Lychford.
Since Autumn herself is one of the "brown people" as some terrible residents are calling it, she feels very uncomfortable and is aghast how little she can talk to otherwise nice people about it. They just don't see anything wrong with their demands that leads to them voting "Leave".
Worst of all, it causes a fall-out between the three witches, too.
But there are other manifestations of a problem (the same perhaps?) such as (but not limited to) several people being led over the magical border and into another world by their navigation apps.
I was surprised that the author managed to get enough humour into this quite dark social topic. Such as Lizzy's name for her fitness tracker / smart watch. *snickers* It was certainly a nice fresh breath of air in between as the overall atmosphere was a bit oppressive.
Consequently, I liked that it wasn't JUST about Brexit and the change in society (worldwide, by the way, not just in Britain) that enabled such a thing to happen in the first place. The magical mystery, the further weakening of the borders, the threat that is not just a problem for us humans ... not to mention Finn's "missteps" and the "music" of the illegal rave getting into faery and disturbing their sleep under the hills. Bwahahahahahaha!
The three witches really have grown on me. Though I have to admit that some reactions from Autumn and her obsession with are borderline annoying and ridiculous. Yes, she was on the edge and I absolutely get why (especially thanks to that terrible man Rory), but some of her notions were just too over the top.
The most heartbreaking, for me, was Judith .
It has also become clear by now that there is a bigger, overall story behind all the single mysteries we have been witness to so far, which is nice. Can't wait to learn more and get to the climax.
One not so good thing was that we once again got a different narrator and I didn't connect with her performance as much as with the previous two. :/
Since Autumn herself is one of the "brown people" as some terrible residents are calling it, she feels very uncomfortable and is aghast how little she can talk to otherwise nice people about it. They just don't see anything wrong with their demands that leads to them voting "Leave".
Worst of all, it causes a fall-out between the three witches, too.
But there are other manifestations of a problem (the same perhaps?) such as (but not limited to) several people being led over the magical border and into another world by their navigation apps.
I was surprised that the author managed to get enough humour into this quite dark social topic. Such as Lizzy's name for her fitness tracker / smart watch. *snickers* It was certainly a nice fresh breath of air in between as the overall atmosphere was a bit oppressive.
Consequently, I liked that it wasn't JUST about Brexit and the change in society (worldwide, by the way, not just in Britain) that enabled such a thing to happen in the first place. The magical mystery, the further weakening of the borders, the threat that is not just a problem for us humans ... not to mention Finn's "missteps" and the "music" of the illegal rave getting into faery and disturbing their sleep under the hills. Bwahahahahahaha!
The three witches really have grown on me. Though I have to admit that some reactions from Autumn and her obsession with are borderline annoying and ridiculous. Yes, she was on the edge and I absolutely get why (especially thanks to that terrible man Rory), but some of her notions were just too over the top.
The most heartbreaking, for me, was Judith .
It has also become clear by now that there is a bigger, overall story behind all the single mysteries we have been witness to so far, which is nice. Can't wait to learn more and get to the climax.
One not so good thing was that we once again got a different narrator and I didn't connect with her performance as much as with the previous two. :/
September 15, 2017
Review to follow closer to release day
June 4, 2021
Probably the biggest theme in this one is borders. Be it borders between employee/teacher, Brexit horribleness, or even the borders between the Fae world and the human world, it's always the biggest source of conflict.
Of course, when we get right down to it, be it Brexit or attempting to set up new boundaries in all the other parts of these witches' lives, some responses are just NOT HELPFUL.
A pretty good setup for the next one. As always, these are character-driven and sometimes quite humorous.
Of course, when we get right down to it, be it Brexit or attempting to set up new boundaries in all the other parts of these witches' lives, some responses are just NOT HELPFUL.
A pretty good setup for the next one. As always, these are character-driven and sometimes quite humorous.
July 13, 2020
Omigoodness, is Judith ever crusty! And this, and her relationship with Autumn actually precipitate a series of disappearances. Lizzy, Autumn and Judith must come together to figure out what is happening, and restore things.
I like how the women get along, or in this case, sorta kinda not get along, and with Judith not getting any younger, it's getting more critical that she pass on what she knows. And everything's happening against a backdrop of a recent vote on BreXit and the mess of feelings that exposed, and how this affects Autumn. The ending of this story points to perhaps a little less growling on Judith's part.
I like how the women get along, or in this case, sorta kinda not get along, and with Judith not getting any younger, it's getting more critical that she pass on what she knows. And everything's happening against a backdrop of a recent vote on BreXit and the mess of feelings that exposed, and how this affects Autumn. The ending of this story points to perhaps a little less growling on Judith's part.
November 28, 2020
REREAD 2020
Rereading to have a clearer picture of everything happening before listening to the last book in the series.
Like with the two others, I don't have anything new to say that I didn't already say in the original review.
Keeping the rating.
-----------------------------------------------
So this book is by far the weakest in the series so far. It wasn't bad, but it was weak. The irony is that I don't think the story in itself was all that weak. I found it interesting, with the pocket worlds and how the author incorporated Brexit. It was interesting seeing it mentioned in a book like this, and how it affect the lives of people in Britain, and how little some of them thought about things when voting this way or that.
What I think the problem was for me, was the narrator.
This series has changed narrator with each book, and that makes it hard to connect to the series. New narrators have different voices and different ways of portraying the characters, and so I never felt like the characters were set. On top of that, the narrator for this book was bad. She used pretty much the same voice for every character, male or female, and so it was hard to know who was saying what when. It made it easy to zone out.
I have already bought and started listening to the next book in the series - The Lights Go Out in Lychford - as it uses one of the two first narrators that I remember liking, and because it seems a lot of things will be happening. Until the ending of this book, I wasn't actually sure if there was a red-thread running through all the books, or if each was just a random story with these women at the senter. Now, it is clear the series is going somewhere, and so I want to give it another chance.
Just hope the author publish the books a little faster in the future. I mean, they're pretty short, one would think he would be able to publish more than once every second year
Original rating: 2/5 stars
Rereading to have a clearer picture of everything happening before listening to the last book in the series.
Like with the two others, I don't have anything new to say that I didn't already say in the original review.
Keeping the rating.
-----------------------------------------------
So this book is by far the weakest in the series so far. It wasn't bad, but it was weak. The irony is that I don't think the story in itself was all that weak. I found it interesting, with the pocket worlds and how the author incorporated Brexit. It was interesting seeing it mentioned in a book like this, and how it affect the lives of people in Britain, and how little some of them thought about things when voting this way or that.
What I think the problem was for me, was the narrator.
This series has changed narrator with each book, and that makes it hard to connect to the series. New narrators have different voices and different ways of portraying the characters, and so I never felt like the characters were set. On top of that, the narrator for this book was bad. She used pretty much the same voice for every character, male or female, and so it was hard to know who was saying what when. It made it easy to zone out.
I have already bought and started listening to the next book in the series - The Lights Go Out in Lychford - as it uses one of the two first narrators that I remember liking, and because it seems a lot of things will be happening. Until the ending of this book, I wasn't actually sure if there was a red-thread running through all the books, or if each was just a random story with these women at the senter. Now, it is clear the series is going somewhere, and so I want to give it another chance.
Just hope the author publish the books a little faster in the future. I mean, they're pretty short, one would think he would be able to publish more than once every second year
Original rating: 2/5 stars
July 18, 2018
Received to review via Netgalley
I haven’t been loving the Lychford novellas as much as other folks have, but Paul Cornell does have a way with characters — the differences and similarities between Judith and Autumn, how that all tangles up around them and has to be straightened out, it’s all really compelling. He also put his finger on the tensions of Brexit in a way that was painfully real: I’m not even a person of colour, but like Autumn I had that awful feeling about everyone around me, trying to figure out how they voted, what they secretly want. And I really felt the way the microaggressions got under her skin; mine are different, but it happens the same way, all the same.
Obviously, from the ending of this, there’s plenty more to come. I’m torn: I like the characters, but I don’t find the story itself that compelling, somehow. It’s a pleasant enough read, but I’m not compelled to find out what happens next. I’ll read more in this series, yes, but… I don’t know. It doesn’t quite work for me on some level. It’s not the book, it’s me.
Reviewed for The Bibliophibian.
I haven’t been loving the Lychford novellas as much as other folks have, but Paul Cornell does have a way with characters — the differences and similarities between Judith and Autumn, how that all tangles up around them and has to be straightened out, it’s all really compelling. He also put his finger on the tensions of Brexit in a way that was painfully real: I’m not even a person of colour, but like Autumn I had that awful feeling about everyone around me, trying to figure out how they voted, what they secretly want. And I really felt the way the microaggressions got under her skin; mine are different, but it happens the same way, all the same.
Obviously, from the ending of this, there’s plenty more to come. I’m torn: I like the characters, but I don’t find the story itself that compelling, somehow. It’s a pleasant enough read, but I’m not compelled to find out what happens next. I’ll read more in this series, yes, but… I don’t know. It doesn’t quite work for me on some level. It’s not the book, it’s me.
Reviewed for The Bibliophibian.
October 11, 2017
I'm grateful to the publisher for an advance copy of this book via NetGalley
This book is a continuation of the Witches of Lychford series, but it's rather different from Witches of Lychford and The Lost Child of Lychford. The change of approach may put some readers off: I felt it makes this book decidedly the best of the series so far.
The story again revolves around Autumn, Judith and Lizzie, shopkeeper, wise woman and Vicar, collectively the Witches of Lychford, protectors of that ancient Cotswold town from outside supernatural threats. Except that, in this book, they're not. Not exactly.
That's where the review gets tricky because I don't want to give too much away. I'll just say that this is a more psychological book, more internally focussed, more driven by the character and experiences of the three and especially, of Autumn. Indeed, Autumn's identity as the only woman (indeed person) of colour in the town is key, here, to understanding what happens. In a story that cleverly hooks into threats in the wider outside world - the divisions caused by the Brexit referendum, the evil banality that is Trump - we see the impact on what are now well-loved characters.
That political angle may alienate some, like Cornell's last book, Chalk, which picked up on the Thatcherite 80s, although of course that is further off and less relevant, perhaps, to non British readers. But it gives the book a real sense of groundedness.
The other respect in which this book is different is that - to a degree - it challenges some conventions of fantasy. For example - and relevant to Autumn's experience - the use of the word "dark" for "evil" is questioned (by Lizzie). And in a story that's pointing up real-world developments around control, exclusion and access, the role of the Witches in "guarding Lychford's boundaries" raises some discomfort. Does this whole outlook not come uncomfortably close to the "let's build a wall and keep them out" rhetoric that we're now seeing?
Cornell isn't so presumptuous as to provide answers to all this, but in a short novella, he certainly raises issues and that gives this story a freshness and interest. No, some may not like it, but I think this is nonetheless an important book in its genre and more widely.
Excellent, and with the seeds, clearly, of further stories planted, I'm looking forward to more.
This book is a continuation of the Witches of Lychford series, but it's rather different from Witches of Lychford and The Lost Child of Lychford. The change of approach may put some readers off: I felt it makes this book decidedly the best of the series so far.
The story again revolves around Autumn, Judith and Lizzie, shopkeeper, wise woman and Vicar, collectively the Witches of Lychford, protectors of that ancient Cotswold town from outside supernatural threats. Except that, in this book, they're not. Not exactly.
That's where the review gets tricky because I don't want to give too much away. I'll just say that this is a more psychological book, more internally focussed, more driven by the character and experiences of the three and especially, of Autumn. Indeed, Autumn's identity as the only woman (indeed person) of colour in the town is key, here, to understanding what happens. In a story that cleverly hooks into threats in the wider outside world - the divisions caused by the Brexit referendum, the evil banality that is Trump - we see the impact on what are now well-loved characters.
That political angle may alienate some, like Cornell's last book, Chalk, which picked up on the Thatcherite 80s, although of course that is further off and less relevant, perhaps, to non British readers. But it gives the book a real sense of groundedness.
The other respect in which this book is different is that - to a degree - it challenges some conventions of fantasy. For example - and relevant to Autumn's experience - the use of the word "dark" for "evil" is questioned (by Lizzie). And in a story that's pointing up real-world developments around control, exclusion and access, the role of the Witches in "guarding Lychford's boundaries" raises some discomfort. Does this whole outlook not come uncomfortably close to the "let's build a wall and keep them out" rhetoric that we're now seeing?
Cornell isn't so presumptuous as to provide answers to all this, but in a short novella, he certainly raises issues and that gives this story a freshness and interest. No, some may not like it, but I think this is nonetheless an important book in its genre and more widely.
Excellent, and with the seeds, clearly, of further stories planted, I'm looking forward to more.
November 23, 2020
Rep: Black biracial main character
Warnings: mentions of microaggressions and racism
A Long Day in Lychford continues the theme of the trio of witches - Judith, Lizzie, and Autumn being protectors of the town. However, this time around, Autumn starts to question the people around her, and their mission, as this book is set in the aftermath of the Brexit vote and the Trump Build-the-Wall rhetoric. I don't remember if it was mentioned before, but it is in this book that Autumn is Black, and more importantly, the only person of color in Lychford, and while she more or less knows how to fight back against the microaggressions and snap back at bigots, this situation brings a new form of alienation. A fight with a bigot has her accidentally (well, drunkenly) break the protections of the town.
When she suspects Judith of having had voted to Leave, it causes an argument between them, and it is probably a bad time for them to be having disagreements, because they have another crisis on their hands. There are missing people, and finding them leads them to discrete pockets of time and space that they have to navigate on their own. Autumn is also pondering their mission as witches to protect from 'outsiders' to their realm, which feels horrifyingly like building a wall to keep others out. I, for one, feel the two situations aren't exactly comparable, since immigrants are not a threat, unlike the eldritch forces that could be. It feels like there was an attempt to connect the two and make some sort of 'there are valid arguments on both sides' sort of thing, which didn't really fit well with the story. Especially as it seems like they will have to prepare for an opportunist taking advantage of the weakened borders.
As an audiobook, it was not a great experience for me. I hadn't noticed that the narrators have been different for each book. I had read the first one and second one quite apart, and they didn't strike me as anything unusual enough to look up who is narrating them. But for this one, I noticed early on there was quite a difference - with changes in how the accents were done, as well Judith's and Lizzie's voices sounding too close to tell them apart often, and moreover the cadence had me losing track multiple times, or not understanding the diction well enough.
Warnings: mentions of microaggressions and racism
A Long Day in Lychford continues the theme of the trio of witches - Judith, Lizzie, and Autumn being protectors of the town. However, this time around, Autumn starts to question the people around her, and their mission, as this book is set in the aftermath of the Brexit vote and the Trump Build-the-Wall rhetoric. I don't remember if it was mentioned before, but it is in this book that Autumn is Black, and more importantly, the only person of color in Lychford, and while she more or less knows how to fight back against the microaggressions and snap back at bigots, this situation brings a new form of alienation. A fight with a bigot has her accidentally (well, drunkenly) break the protections of the town.
When she suspects Judith of having had voted to Leave, it causes an argument between them, and it is probably a bad time for them to be having disagreements, because they have another crisis on their hands. There are missing people, and finding them leads them to discrete pockets of time and space that they have to navigate on their own. Autumn is also pondering their mission as witches to protect from 'outsiders' to their realm, which feels horrifyingly like building a wall to keep others out. I, for one, feel the two situations aren't exactly comparable, since immigrants are not a threat, unlike the eldritch forces that could be. It feels like there was an attempt to connect the two and make some sort of 'there are valid arguments on both sides' sort of thing, which didn't really fit well with the story. Especially as it seems like they will have to prepare for an opportunist taking advantage of the weakened borders.
As an audiobook, it was not a great experience for me. I hadn't noticed that the narrators have been different for each book. I had read the first one and second one quite apart, and they didn't strike me as anything unusual enough to look up who is narrating them. But for this one, I noticed early on there was quite a difference - with changes in how the accents were done, as well Judith's and Lizzie's voices sounding too close to tell them apart often, and moreover the cadence had me losing track multiple times, or not understanding the diction well enough.
November 27, 2017
Just doesnt work at all. Loved the previous two installments but this was just a pain to read. Too much Brexit angst and not enough of the great characters that made the rest of the series. The characters just don't feel like they did and the book just felt like a trudge to read through which has never been the case with any of Cornells books , graphic novelsor comics I have read before.
The whole think felt a bit of a train wreck and I really hope the series can revive somehow
The whole think felt a bit of a train wreck and I really hope the series can revive somehow
October 12, 2017
This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.
---
Lychford's apprentice witch (not that anyone knows that), and owner of Witches, a magic shop (not that many take it seriously), Autumn has had a bad day. So bad, that a police officer has dropped by the next morning to interrupt an impending hangover with questions about it. She had a fight with her teacher and employee that left both fuming and ready to consider ending the relationships, and then she went to a bar not-really-looking for a fight, but ready for it when it showed up.
But when you're one of three women responsible for protecting the borders between our world and the rest, and you're pretty magic-capable, your bad days can have pretty catastrophic consequences. Without getting into the details, she messes up the borders, the protections -- the magic that keeps all the things and people and whatevers out of our world that we're not equipped to deal with (in any sense).
Meanwhile, Judith is dealing with the aftermath of the fight with Autumn in her own way. Which boils down to being crankier than usual, and then dealing with the fallout from Autumn's error. Judith is primarily concerned with problems that the other two aren't aware of and have little do to with magic. There were a line or two that I think were supposed to be spooky or creepy in her POV sections that really were just sad (my guess is that Cornell wrote them to work on both levels, but they really only served as the latter for me).
Lizzie got put on the backburner for the most part in this book -- not that she's absent, but she doesn't have that much to do. Which is fine -- she can't be the center of each entry in this series, but I'd have preferred to have seen a bit more from her. I enjoyed the references to Lizzie's Fitbit, it was nice to have just the hint of lightness in this otherwise grim story. Actually, the other thing that came close to fun in this book also came from Lizzie's POV. She's not the typical source for that, and it's nice to see that she's capable of it.
I wish these were longer -- I know it's supposed to be a series of novellas, but this one in particular makes me want for more -- more development, more plot, more character interaction. I don't think I noticed it as much in the previous installments, so maybe it's something about this one. Still, this is a good story and time spent in Lychford is always rewarding.
In the end, this served primarily to set the stage for Witches of Lychford #4 -- and maybe more. Yes, the story was interesting, and it was good to have this look at Autumn, and the whole Brexit tie-in was interesting, but this just didn't work for me quite the way the others did. I have high hopes for the next, it's not like I'm done with this or anything, I just wanted more.
---
Lychford's apprentice witch (not that anyone knows that), and owner of Witches, a magic shop (not that many take it seriously), Autumn has had a bad day. So bad, that a police officer has dropped by the next morning to interrupt an impending hangover with questions about it. She had a fight with her teacher and employee that left both fuming and ready to consider ending the relationships, and then she went to a bar not-really-looking for a fight, but ready for it when it showed up.
But when you're one of three women responsible for protecting the borders between our world and the rest, and you're pretty magic-capable, your bad days can have pretty catastrophic consequences. Without getting into the details, she messes up the borders, the protections -- the magic that keeps all the things and people and whatevers out of our world that we're not equipped to deal with (in any sense).
Meanwhile, Judith is dealing with the aftermath of the fight with Autumn in her own way. Which boils down to being crankier than usual, and then dealing with the fallout from Autumn's error. Judith is primarily concerned with problems that the other two aren't aware of and have little do to with magic. There were a line or two that I think were supposed to be spooky or creepy in her POV sections that really were just sad (my guess is that Cornell wrote them to work on both levels, but they really only served as the latter for me).
Lizzie got put on the backburner for the most part in this book -- not that she's absent, but she doesn't have that much to do. Which is fine -- she can't be the center of each entry in this series, but I'd have preferred to have seen a bit more from her. I enjoyed the references to Lizzie's Fitbit, it was nice to have just the hint of lightness in this otherwise grim story. Actually, the other thing that came close to fun in this book also came from Lizzie's POV. She's not the typical source for that, and it's nice to see that she's capable of it.
I wish these were longer -- I know it's supposed to be a series of novellas, but this one in particular makes me want for more -- more development, more plot, more character interaction. I don't think I noticed it as much in the previous installments, so maybe it's something about this one. Still, this is a good story and time spent in Lychford is always rewarding.
In the end, this served primarily to set the stage for Witches of Lychford #4 -- and maybe more. Yes, the story was interesting, and it was good to have this look at Autumn, and the whole Brexit tie-in was interesting, but this just didn't work for me quite the way the others did. I have high hopes for the next, it's not like I'm done with this or anything, I just wanted more.
October 10, 2017
Of the Tor.com novella series I’ve been reading, Paul Cornell’s Witches of Lychford series is my favorite.
In this volume, Cornell takes the recent Brexit vote and the anti-immigrant sentiments expressed by some people who voted to leave the EU as his jumping off point for the action. One of the witches, Autumn, who is mixed race, has been feeling particularly alienated by the vote. When she has an encounter with a racist bigot, her anger at his words (combined with a copious amount of alcohol) leads her to use her magic in a way that shatters the protective barriers that keep Lychford and the rest of our world safe from the inhabitants of other realities.
I suppose if you don’t like your fiction to discuss current politics, you might want to give A Long Day in Lychford a miss, but I think that would be a mistake. Cornell makes clear that anger on either side of the political spectrum is a negative, and that whatever our personal beliefs, we should remember our common humanity. He quite literally has characters get into each other’s heads at one point—something that might benefit just about all of us.
It would also be a mistake because this novella clearly sets the stage for the next one in the series. Autumn’s magic seriously weakens the barriers protecting our world, which is going to have consequences. The oldest member of the trio of witches, hedge witch Judith, is also dealing with some personal issues that are likely to interfere with their attempts to keep our reality safe from potential invaders.
These novellas are a terrific mix of plot and character development. I think Cornell’s background in television really stands him in good stead here. He is able to provide plenty of action while also exploring the personalities of and the deepening relationship between his three main characters, Autumn, Judith, and Lizzie, all within the relatively short form of a novella.
I highly recommend this entire series to anyone who enjoys paranormal fantasy. I’m really looking forward to getting my hands on the next one!
An eARC of this novel was provided by the publisher through NetGalley for review; all opinions expressed are my own.
In this volume, Cornell takes the recent Brexit vote and the anti-immigrant sentiments expressed by some people who voted to leave the EU as his jumping off point for the action. One of the witches, Autumn, who is mixed race, has been feeling particularly alienated by the vote. When she has an encounter with a racist bigot, her anger at his words (combined with a copious amount of alcohol) leads her to use her magic in a way that shatters the protective barriers that keep Lychford and the rest of our world safe from the inhabitants of other realities.
I suppose if you don’t like your fiction to discuss current politics, you might want to give A Long Day in Lychford a miss, but I think that would be a mistake. Cornell makes clear that anger on either side of the political spectrum is a negative, and that whatever our personal beliefs, we should remember our common humanity. He quite literally has characters get into each other’s heads at one point—something that might benefit just about all of us.
It would also be a mistake because this novella clearly sets the stage for the next one in the series. Autumn’s magic seriously weakens the barriers protecting our world, which is going to have consequences. The oldest member of the trio of witches, hedge witch Judith, is also dealing with some personal issues that are likely to interfere with their attempts to keep our reality safe from potential invaders.
These novellas are a terrific mix of plot and character development. I think Cornell’s background in television really stands him in good stead here. He is able to provide plenty of action while also exploring the personalities of and the deepening relationship between his three main characters, Autumn, Judith, and Lizzie, all within the relatively short form of a novella.
I highly recommend this entire series to anyone who enjoys paranormal fantasy. I’m really looking forward to getting my hands on the next one!
An eARC of this novel was provided by the publisher through NetGalley for review; all opinions expressed are my own.
November 4, 2017
I love the Lychford books, but I'm left wanting every single time! I'd love there to be more substance to the village and its residents; more background, more colour, but as this is very deliberately written as a novella, it lacks that extra depth.
The story flows along nicely and there is some satisfying character growth. Can't wait for the next one!
The story flows along nicely and there is some satisfying character growth. Can't wait for the next one!
October 22, 2017
Rash acts can have unforeseen consequences. Magical borders are trapping people and the witches of the village need to work out how to fix things. A story that has a lot to say about the UK and Brexit. Worth your time
November 16, 2017
This is the third entry in the Lychford series, and so far it seems to be the weakest of the three.
It's also damn depressing. Hey, who wants to remember how horrible the world is now that racist-Islamophobes have voted for the Brexit, and Trump is talking about building a wall to keep desirables out? Because guess what; that comes up a lot in this story.
I don't want to give a lot of the plot away, especially in such a short novella, but the story focuses a lot on the feelings of otherness brought on by being an eccentric witch or the only coloured person in town, rescuing people like and unlike yourself, and whether or not it's better to have a wall to separate boundaries (for safety reasons).
Like I said, it's pretty political, without a lot subtlety.
Also, it's a little fragmented, with all three witches separated for most of the story, knotted up and dealing with so much chaos. Once the story finally gets started, it doesn't take long to hurry on to it's frenetic conclusion.
Overall, it was still enjoyable, but I feel that this story was more important for the plot threads it's laid down for future installments, especially a few things that were dropped on the reader that we know will have big consequences later on.
It's also damn depressing. Hey, who wants to remember how horrible the world is now that racist-Islamophobes have voted for the Brexit, and Trump is talking about building a wall to keep desirables out? Because guess what; that comes up a lot in this story.
I don't want to give a lot of the plot away, especially in such a short novella, but the story focuses a lot on the feelings of otherness brought on by being an eccentric witch or the only coloured person in town, rescuing people like and unlike yourself, and whether or not it's better to have a wall to separate boundaries (for safety reasons).
Like I said, it's pretty political, without a lot subtlety.
Also, it's a little fragmented, with all three witches separated for most of the story, knotted up and dealing with so much chaos. Once the story finally gets started, it doesn't take long to hurry on to it's frenetic conclusion.
Overall, it was still enjoyable, but I feel that this story was more important for the plot threads it's laid down for future installments, especially a few things that were dropped on the reader that we know will have big consequences later on.
November 14, 2017
Always great to spend more time in Lychford, and this installment is no exception. It's Brexit in microcosm. Except with added fairies, witches, and the local vicar. I love how two of the central characters were explored in this, some lovely depth added to their existing relationship.
October 16, 2017
I enjoyed this, but preferred the previous two novellas
October 15, 2017
2.5 stars
The Lychford series are all short novellas, and a particular strength of the previous two was that they didn't feel short: Cornell packed in a ton of atmosphere and twistiness and understated character development to make them feel rich regardless of length. I've loved how they've built mystery and foreboding, the way the stories present the things that are wrong very tightly from the characters' perspectives, so that we only start to see them as odd when the characters do — whether that's in an instantaneous double-take or several pages after an out of place object makes an appearance. It really pulls you into the narrative while tilting you a bit off-center. And it does this with a heavy dose of charm without eschewing the modernity of the three witches at the center of the series; their worries are grounded in reality with a supernatural twist, such as the way the building of a new supermarket threatens the long established borders keeping the town safe.
This book kind of falls short in all those respects. In the beginning Cornell chooses to unfold the mystery at the center of the plot by having Autumn (each book is written from all three witches' perspectives, but there does always seem to be one the story revolves around a little more, and this is Autumn's turn) recollecting the events of the previous night in the midst of a hangover: an interesting conceit, but it doesn't quite work. Autumn remembers everything in not just a linear fashion, but at a pace to suit the progress of the narrative. I've been drunk and suffered hangovers, but the side effects have always been headaches, nausea, and a spotty memory, not a narratively convenient one. That made it a bit hard not just to suspend disbelief but to gain any real sense of portentous happenings. Things do eventually pick up a bit for about the last third of the book as the witches go about solving and righting the mystery in a way that seems familiar (and unique and magical) from the previous books, but aside from a couple spooky moments, it never really achieves that charming, lowkey spookiness of the previous novellas.
This is particularly disappointing because I felt so much could have been done to meet the established tone of the series. The witches have always dealt with protecting the borders of their town (it's a sort of Hellmouth in the way it's a focal point for these boundaries that supernatural creatures would very much like to breach), and this is suddenly complicated by the recent Brexit vote. Cornell does some really lovely things with linking the task of keeping supernatural outsiders out with the fact that Autumn, a black woman, has in many ways always felt like an outsider in her own town, as well as what this means for her relationship with Judith, the fellow witch (and old crone, you might say) to whom she's apprenticed and who's also dealing with the impact of aging in her life (the fact that many who voted in favor of Brexit were old and white is not irrelevant). Unfortunately, while the story embraces the quarrel between the two characters, it shies away from addressing Judith's beliefs directly. Or from linking the very real dread at the state of the world that's invoked at the beginning of the story to the continuing and escalating threat to the town of Lychford.
Which would've probably required a longer novel, or at least a more tightly written one. Cornell writes his female characters beautifully, authentically and distinctly, and that remains true. There's just not a lot of room for the rest of the stumbling that occurred here, so instead of savoring this newest installment I just find myself looking forward to the next one and hoping it's able to recapture the magic the next time we see these characters.
Also, on a more shallow note: The previous books have both had those really beautiful buttery, velvety covers, and I'm actually pretty disappointed that this is just your standard cardstock sort of cover. I was honestly looking forward to the experience of simply holding another one of these books in my hands again. :((((((
The Lychford series are all short novellas, and a particular strength of the previous two was that they didn't feel short: Cornell packed in a ton of atmosphere and twistiness and understated character development to make them feel rich regardless of length. I've loved how they've built mystery and foreboding, the way the stories present the things that are wrong very tightly from the characters' perspectives, so that we only start to see them as odd when the characters do — whether that's in an instantaneous double-take or several pages after an out of place object makes an appearance. It really pulls you into the narrative while tilting you a bit off-center. And it does this with a heavy dose of charm without eschewing the modernity of the three witches at the center of the series; their worries are grounded in reality with a supernatural twist, such as the way the building of a new supermarket threatens the long established borders keeping the town safe.
This book kind of falls short in all those respects. In the beginning Cornell chooses to unfold the mystery at the center of the plot by having Autumn (each book is written from all three witches' perspectives, but there does always seem to be one the story revolves around a little more, and this is Autumn's turn) recollecting the events of the previous night in the midst of a hangover: an interesting conceit, but it doesn't quite work. Autumn remembers everything in not just a linear fashion, but at a pace to suit the progress of the narrative. I've been drunk and suffered hangovers, but the side effects have always been headaches, nausea, and a spotty memory, not a narratively convenient one. That made it a bit hard not just to suspend disbelief but to gain any real sense of portentous happenings. Things do eventually pick up a bit for about the last third of the book as the witches go about solving and righting the mystery in a way that seems familiar (and unique and magical) from the previous books, but aside from a couple spooky moments, it never really achieves that charming, lowkey spookiness of the previous novellas.
This is particularly disappointing because I felt so much could have been done to meet the established tone of the series. The witches have always dealt with protecting the borders of their town (it's a sort of Hellmouth in the way it's a focal point for these boundaries that supernatural creatures would very much like to breach), and this is suddenly complicated by the recent Brexit vote. Cornell does some really lovely things with linking the task of keeping supernatural outsiders out with the fact that Autumn, a black woman, has in many ways always felt like an outsider in her own town, as well as what this means for her relationship with Judith, the fellow witch (and old crone, you might say) to whom she's apprenticed and who's also dealing with the impact of aging in her life (the fact that many who voted in favor of Brexit were old and white is not irrelevant). Unfortunately, while the story embraces the quarrel between the two characters, it shies away from addressing Judith's beliefs directly. Or from linking the very real dread at the state of the world that's invoked at the beginning of the story to the continuing and escalating threat to the town of Lychford.
Which would've probably required a longer novel, or at least a more tightly written one. Cornell writes his female characters beautifully, authentically and distinctly, and that remains true. There's just not a lot of room for the rest of the stumbling that occurred here, so instead of savoring this newest installment I just find myself looking forward to the next one and hoping it's able to recapture the magic the next time we see these characters.
Also, on a more shallow note: The previous books have both had those really beautiful buttery, velvety covers, and I'm actually pretty disappointed that this is just your standard cardstock sort of cover. I was honestly looking forward to the experience of simply holding another one of these books in my hands again. :((((((
January 26, 2018
Paul Cornell tackles the issue of the day in his roundabout manner, and if I didn't think he'd quite hit the mark as I read, I still finished the novella in tears. Just for a change.
Having made lots of comments about how Autumn's magic is informed by logic and science and how much I loved that, Long Day explores what happens when the apprentice witch lets her feelings get the better of her. And in the wake of Brexit, there are lots of feelings running high - and more than enough room for damage to be done that was never intended.
Sound familiar?
Humph.
Another excellent instalment in the Lychford series.
Full review
Having made lots of comments about how Autumn's magic is informed by logic and science and how much I loved that, Long Day explores what happens when the apprentice witch lets her feelings get the better of her. And in the wake of Brexit, there are lots of feelings running high - and more than enough room for damage to be done that was never intended.
Sound familiar?
Humph.
Another excellent instalment in the Lychford series.
Full review
November 12, 2018
Maybe more of a 2.5
November 14, 2017
We've all done things we regret while drinking - when you're a witch who's only recently truly acknowledged the existence of true magic, there's a lot of damage you can do.
Other readers have mentioned that this novel felt less than the first two, and they wouldn't be wrong - the first two focused so much more on the characters on the events, and they are characters I love. It felt like I was almost missing them this time around - they were all there, but without the focus on getting to know them, they lost some of the individuality and charm that made them so special to begin with.
It's still a series I'll continue on with, without even a second's hesitation, but while I loved the other two, this I only liked.
Other readers have mentioned that this novel felt less than the first two, and they wouldn't be wrong - the first two focused so much more on the characters on the events, and they are characters I love. It felt like I was almost missing them this time around - they were all there, but without the focus on getting to know them, they lost some of the individuality and charm that made them so special to begin with.
It's still a series I'll continue on with, without even a second's hesitation, but while I loved the other two, this I only liked.
November 12, 2017
DNF. This series continues to go downhill. While the first book was fun and had some great characters, by the second one the plot was very much the same as in the first book, and the characters began repeating their shticks, but the short novel was still somewhat enjoyable. This third installment is completely unreadable. The plot is again about breaching the magical borders of town, which now have to be recovered. The characters are nothing but a bunch of oddities poorly held together. After just a few chapters I don't care what happens to any of them, and they can all be conquered by the evil spirits for all I care. I think I am done with this series.
December 20, 2017
Although I don't think this is as strong an entry in this series of fantasy novellas, Lychford hasn't yet run out of steam. The three witches that Cornell has written into existence are as strong as any witchy triad from literary history: welcome additions to the likes of Lloyd Alexander's Prydain trio (see: The Black Cauldron), Terry Pratchett's Wyrd Sisters and, of course, Macbeth. The pacing is pure television show, but that certainly doesn't detract from the rollicking good fun here. I'm eagerly awaiting the next book in the series!
November 29, 2020
This is one of the first stories I've read that's clearly set in the aftermath of the Brexit vote in 2016. Cornell does a nice job using the themes of outsiders and borders to good effect in light of that. I will say though that the characters sure seem to flail a bit. We also get the first hint about some forthcoming dangers.
October 16, 2021
3.5 Stars
I wanted SO much to have loved this, but it really didn't keep my attention.
The idea of the bubbles was interesting, but for some reason the way it was experienced in the story didn't capture me...like the previous two stories.
I still enjoy the three main characters. I'm hoping the library will get the next two books. Finger's crossed.
I wanted SO much to have loved this, but it really didn't keep my attention.
The idea of the bubbles was interesting, but for some reason the way it was experienced in the story didn't capture me...like the previous two stories.
I still enjoy the three main characters. I'm hoping the library will get the next two books. Finger's crossed.
November 20, 2017
Üç cadının hikayesi gene muhteşem. Brexit ve sonrasında olanlar üzerinden inanılmaz bir hikaye ortaya çıkmış.
February 17, 2018
Not usually a fan of the short story, but I do enjoy these characters and look forward to the next full size novel
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