Katherine Fabian and Iona Datt Sharma’s Sing for the Coming of the Longest Night is a self-published fantasy 30k novella (Amazon | Smashwords) that I really liked and therefore am setting a timer to write up because, self-published fantasy novella: it could use the publicity.
This is set in a modern London in which Faerie is, sometimes, over the water; that proximity allows magic into our world. Meraud was born over the water to human parents, and is really good at magic as a result—maybe a little too good, because now he’s gone missing, and his girlfriend Layla and his partner Nat have to find him.
So this is a form of fantasy that is more in the Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell line—Dunsany is explicitly name-checked—which itself is unusual and, to me, welcome. (To the Dunsany – Lud-in-the-Mist – Kingdoms of Elfin – JS&MN lineage, I wonder if we shouldn’t add The Face in the Frost? There’s a snowglobe in this story that reminded me of it, and while it doesn’t have Faerie-as-adjacent-or-intrusion, the magic seems to have some similarity. I’d reread it but I’m tired of being cold.)
It is also a story about people who are queer and poly. Layla and Nat are not romantically involved and indeed do not particularly like each other, at least not at the start of the story; but they are both concerned about Meraud and so bring all their sometimes-prickly adult emotional complexities to their partnership. Which allows for both self-insight and growth, and a lovely extension of community and support between and around them. (Also Layla is Hindu and married to a woman, and Nat is Jewish and non-binary.)
I have three minutes left on my timer. I like Layla and Nat a lot; unsurprisingly I also really like Layla’s wife, who I would like to emulate in efficiency and kindness, but basically all the characters are great. The only exception is Meraud himself; I suspect I would not actually like him, but I believe that Layla and Nat care and have good reason, and that’s enough to carry me through.
I thought at first the plot was a high-fantasy quest for a McGuffin, being subverted by a very domestic focus; now I think it’s a fairy tale, unless there’s not actually a difference between the two. (The very fact that it doesn’t matter whether I like Meraud weighs a little on the MacGuffin side, with him as MacGuffin. Maybe.)
Basically, as I said on Twitter, reading this made me feel very cozy and also like dying my hair as a Pride flag. If that, plus some JS&MN-ish magic, sounds appealing to you, definitely check it out. (I will even try to figure out the Kindle loan thing if you are short on cash at the moment!)