The Witches of Lychford Series - The Lights Go Out in Lychford by Paul Cornell

Blogger’s note this series is ongoing and this review looks at the broader series and will mention some spoilers for the latest book

This series is wonderfully subversive. Our view of villages even in the UK is that they’re just fossilised little settlements of farmers and cut off from all the urban issues we townspeople must deal with. But Cornell is very good at showing us that the village even in the 21st century is still alive and often having to face the same challenges and battles that many of urban dwellers will recognise – people are always fundamentally people.

The premise for the series is the English village of Lychford is a place that sits on borders between magical worlds. There are fae and often in the books a more sinister unnamed threat that wants to tackle both worlds. For a long time Judith had been the sole wise woman/witch for the village responsible for handling any attempted incursions but in the first book (The Witches of Lychford) Judith ended crossing paths with Lizzie; the new female vicar for the village and Lizzie’s old friend the more new age focused Autumn who has also recently returned to the village (who is also now quite conspicuous in a village as rare person of colour). Effectively all three women had to save the village from a threat and in the process gained access to magical senses – Lizzie is always careful not to name this a coven and supernatural stories then followed.

What I like about the series is while Cornell can always tell a great fantasy story of magic and myth; the stories also look what I could describe as the state of the UK. The books have looked at increasing commercialism; the stresses of Christmas and the endless pain that is Brexit. As any observer of our news can tell you our country isn’t nearly as strong and stable as the government would like you to believe we are a fractured nation dealing with a sense of who exactly are we and sometimes the answers to that we choose are not great.  Villages like any place are fill of differing interests and views sometimes aligned and sometimes in opposition to one another. Cornell is a wonderfully empathic writer and can brilliantly show horror, stress, anxiety, love and friendship. Using three main characters of such different backgrounds and outlooks on life gets to create internal tensions as these people who probably would not usually now cross paths try to understand each other and save the world.

So, what is happening this time?

Publisher – Tor

Published – Out Now

Price - £2.44 Kindle eBook; £9.99 paperback

Be careful what you wish for…

The borders of Lychford are crumbling. Other realities threaten to seep into the otherwise quiet village, and the resident wise woman is struggling to remain wise. The local magic shop owner and the local priest are having troubles of their own. And a mysterious stranger is on hand to offer a solution to everyone’s problems. No cost, no strings (she says). But as everyone knows, free wishes from strangers rarely come without a price…

If I gave you a free wish what would you do with it?  Would you go personal or global?  Something good or something wicked? Wishes are our desires so perhaps they tell us something about what we really want rather than need?  In Paul Cornell’s very nimble smart and emotional entry in the Lychford series of novellas we get a great tale of magic and deceptions that also manages to change the nature of the series for good.

In the last book Autumn in a moment of understandable ager at the village voting for Brexit wrecked the magical borders that surround Lychford and Judith (apologetically a Brexit voter) had to use an awful lot of power to put some new ones in place. But that doesn’t mean Lychford is safe and unfortunately Judith is increasingly showing signs of dementia getting lost in her past and her present. While Autumn and Lizzie try to deal with the changes in their friend they also find a new person has arrived in the village; Maitland Picton is super organised for the various WI and Festival Committees, she’s running online Facebook groups and getting the people involved and now happy to share their thoughts on what needs to be done (for the village and themselves). But Picton is setting off Lizzie and Autumn’s magical senses – something feels a bit too perfect…

There is some delightfully skilful plotting on display as we jump from some truly sad scenes as we experience life in Judith’s head seeing the way she is perceiving reality and watching her past and present bleed into each other. These powerful scenes show us the horror of dementia; but they also show how the people around Judith struggle to know how to respond to someone that you love so much now acting so out of character and sometimes very dangerously. At the same time Lizzie and Autumn investigate Picton and we see how villages like all places a mixture of communal spirits wanting to make the place better and an awful lot of people just unhappy with the world and wanting something drastic done (but ideally by someone else so they don’t have to get their fingers dirty). It’s the duality of our natures that we could be great at helping people but often instead incredibly selfish – and just like in elections there are people or forces in Lychford trying to tempt/battle for our souls as to which way we end up as a people. I cannot imagine why I’m getting political this week!

The real skill though is Cornell plays with our knowledge of the previous books after three books we think we know the formula. The threat follows the pattern of the story as something from outside wants to be inside our world. But as we get sucked in; we may realise a little too late there is a LOT more going on this time. The stakes get even higher and the latter half of the book goes in unexpected and emotional directions I did not expect to happen. The plotting is great but the glue here that always pulls me into these stories is the emotional intensity that Cornell brings.  This story can jumps from despair at Judith’s situation to very quickly the joyful and geeky banter of Autumn and Lizzie then on to true moments of horror and in particular how starkly Cornell unpeels all the sometimes very scary thoughts ordinary people have about how they want the world to be at the cost of others. This is very much a story about having decide to act yourself or allowing someone else to drive the situation.

If you’ve already enjoyed the previous entries in the series, then you really really need to pick this one up.  I warn you now that as Cornell has announced there is just one more novella in the series to come out next year then you like I will be wanting time to hurry up so we can read it. This is a wonderfully clever; astute and surprising series that often unpicks what living today in Britain is like under our stiff upper lip stereotype and just so happens to be great fantasy to boot.