A very long day, indeed, as Lizzie's, Judith's, and Autumn's magical sight and abilities prove seriously troublesome. Autumn is forced to confront entrenched bigotry first hand in the immediate aftermath of the Brexit vote; her response proves over-the-top in magical terms and soon all 3 are lost.

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.

Lizzy, Judith and Autumn are the three resident witches of Lychford, a sleepy Gloucestershire town. It's up to them to solve disappearances, but in the wake of Brexit Autumn is questioning her place in Lychford because of her skin colour, and Judith is struggling to keep herself together and pass on her knowledge to Lizzy and Autumn before it's too late. When people start to go missing, our trio discover that they are being pulled across boundaries. There's political trouble at home and trouble in the world of faerie, too. Each woman is on her own to rescue a particular group of strayed humans. Cornell managed to bring real world concerns into the magical world and the wave of anti-foreigner sentiment affects Lychford, too. A thoroughly enjoyable read, if a little uncomfortable at times as thew three women's sentiments are laid bare.

It's a really long day in Lychford and it's very close to ending badly. The three village witches have a bit of a task ahead of them.

Autumn Bluntstone has a bad head and a bad conscience. She attempts to piece together what she did the night before after waking in her magic shop. She remembers the row with mentor Judith Mawson especially after their discussion of who voted for what in the EU referendum. She remembers the problems in the pub later. Her feeling of isolation and a sense of change in England since the vote makes her super-sensitive to an old man's jibes.

Judith has her own concerns. Hurt by Autumn’s attitude and recently released from a curse herself she is conscious there is something wrong in her life but cannot pin point it.

The Reverend Lizzie Blackmore also has a difficult start to the day as there is some incessant thumping music in the distance sounding like an interminable rave. With the additional irritant of a visit from Finn, prince of Fairy who is convinced that her actions on their previous problem/adventure has caused gates between the worlds of fairy and the human world to fail.

It's about to get worse. When the three women get together they discover just what and who is causing the problems and for a change it’s not the politicians.

This short novel from the prolific pen of Paul Cornell is the third one to feature the three witches and they are all highly readable. The scenarios all take place in the Cotswold village of Lychford with only a small cast who are easy to empathise with. The shortness of the novel is refreshing in a world of epic never-ending stories and the pace is good with each of the three leads taking the stage and coming together to solve the knotty problem at the heart of the story. The dialogue feels natural and the quickly drawn supporting cast recognisable. All in all, I just love this Cornell series His easy style which flows along nicely. He provides plenty of thrills and entertainment along the way along with a real affection for his characters. The novels are complete within themselves but they are worth seeking out along with his other series the Severed Streets.

I enjoy the conceit of a vicar who is also a witch, and I enjoy the other central characters. However, this particular title was a bit sparse on content and on character development.

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.

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 keep 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.

As with the previous installments, I enjoy this series; I like that it features three very different women, and that it isn't just a lone heroine trying to save the world (because please give me more women working TOGETHER in books). I also like that they're all different ages and have different circumstances; it makes for far more interesting character development. Like the earlier books, I don't feel like the installments themselves are incomplete -- they don't feel like episodes or partial novels the way some short fiction does. But I still find myself woefully unsatisfied by the length, and while that's a good thing in some ways -- after all, it's often a compliment to say an author left you wanting more -- I still sort of wish Cornell would write a full-length novel about Lychford and its inhabitants.

This book is set in the immediate aftermath of the Brexit vote, which is an interesting decision on Cornell's part. It's meaningful, and I don't think books should avoid politics or try and pretend that parallels with current affairs don't exist or whatever, but it also felt a little strange -- possibly because it's already well over a year since the vote, and so the book feels peculiarly dated before it's even come out. That said, there's little point in trying to set a book in a perpetual vague 'present'; there will always be details that date it, and in the end it's probably better to just say it's 2016 and have done with it. But I do wonder how it will read in a few years' time, and whether it'll still feel relevant. In some ways, I hope it won't, particularly the racism that Autumn encounters. It would be nice if that became a thing of the past; I'm not especially optimistic that it will.

Also, although I've said that the book has become dated, the aftermath of Brexit remains a painful reality, and so there's something not very escapist about this book; I usually turn to fantasy to get away from whatever political disasters we're facing in the real world, not to be reminded of it. So I think for that reason, it probably isn't my favourite of the series, and the plot -- which mainly revolves around mistaken interdimensional weirdnesses, as far as I could tell -- doesn't stand independently apart from that enough to win me over.

So, to conclude: do you think fantasy writers should avoid politics? Give this one a miss. Did you vote for Brexit? The viewpoint character at several key scenes is going to vehemently disagree with you, just so you know (also, why did you vote for Brexit, ugh). On the other hand, do you want a novella featuring women worknig together that addresses real contemporary issues in Britain today? Here's one for you.

I'm not sure how to rate this, so I'm going to go for a copout 3.5 stars (NetGalley, if you're going to force me to use star ratings, please at least give me the option of using half stars). This review also appears on Goodreads, and will hopefully be cross-posted to my blog, but university ate my life so it might take a little while.

The third novella in this series show the village of Lychford struggling with the effect of the Brexit vote. How can the village’s resident witches help the town during this time of unrest and what do politics have to do with “malfunctioning” smartphone software have to do with the creepy goings on? There is a big reveal at the end of the book about who will take up the magical reigns in the town. Not my favorite book in the series, but still a solid entry