Longshadow

By: Olivia Atwater / Narrated By: Madeleine Leslay

Length: 9 hrs and 46 mins

Muuuuuuch anticipated Book 3! And so delighted by it all!!!

So I’d had Longshadow in Pre-Order for, like, forEVER, and was absolutely thrilled to see that God and the Universe were blessing m’ Birthday with it released on audio a mere four days afterward. No, seriously: It’s cuz o’ meeeeee that this FINALLY came out. Huzzah for meeeeee!

That said, however, it opens with a warning to the Closed of Mind, to the Closed of Heart, by our heroine Abigail Wilder noticing just how very happy she is to be in the company of another woman, sure that should she be seen, what with the feelings of warmth and gentle longing, a chaperone would be needed, and she’d be chastised and scowled at. Can two young women be together?

So there, right out there. You have a problem with that, go on to other audiobooks and? SHAME on you… Just saying…

Abigail has been adopted by none other than Dora and Elias (The Lord Sorcier), and she has a bit of magic going for her on her own. As young ladies of the Ton start dropping like flies, as Elias has his hands full, Abigail starts doing some sleuthing, some magic of her own. Along with little boy ghost, Hugh (Adorably written!), they are allowed to snoop around the rooms of Lucy, the most recent young lady to dance at a Ball, only to be struck dead overnight.

This leads to a run-in with Mercy, a young woman who smells of lye (Could she be a laundress? Definitely a guttersnipe…). Mixed feelings, misunderstandings galore, but the trio are soon in cahoots as the plot thickens and they get closer to solving the mystery.

The romance between the two is gentle and tentative, no toe-curling scenes (Which thank good golly gosh is soooo NOT author Olivia Atwater’s style), but just a sweetness with all the hesitation necessary due to the times of the Day. Plus, Mercy comes with PLENty o’ mystery herself, and it’s all written so that we discover facets and truths about her just as Abigail does.

I got a weeee bit confused about the rules of the magic system, but I’m fairly certain that has more to do with Fantasy not being m’ usual genre, so it’s all, say, like when I first started with listening to Mysteries: I flailed, snapped at red herrings, generally dismissed various elements cuz it was all so unfamiliar, ya know? Here, Atwater makes each of her Fae remarkably unique so that they’re not fit into a shoebox, but they are instead fascinating.

There were no tears for me in this, Longshadow, as there were in Half a Soul and Ten Thousand Stitches, but there were SEVeral times I applauded Atwater for her scene choices. There was an instance where Atwater could’ve gone with the more dramatic scene of Mercy making Lucy visible so that Mum could see her, but instead? Atwater goes with Dora (Abigail’s adoptive Mum who has only that half-soul) taking Abigail off to the side to share her heart with Abigail, as best she can. Dora’s expressiveness is halting, and she struggles to bring out just how very proud she is of Abigail, how loved and admired she is; for a woman who has to trundle through life with emotions sooo out of reach, this is a beYONd touching scene, and it’s a spectacular choice made by Atwater.

Okay… where the hell is Rafe Beckley? I LOVED him in Book 1 and Book 2—such a stellar performer. But whilst looking on Audible and seeing all three audiobooks are available? Beckley isn’t narrator for any of them. All three audiobooks are with our narrator here: Madeleine Leslay. I’m HORRIBLY disappointed, thought p’raps she’d been chosen to bring a sensitivity to our heroines, but alas and drat it! Because, you see, she does well enough, but her voice for Elias is wretched in the extreme. I simply canNOT imagine her doing the entirety of him as Hero in Half a Soul. Boooo and >groooan<. So, Leslay? Good enough for this story, but? Man, am I sooo very glad that I got in on the ground floor and have Rafe Beckley in m’ Library.

Lovely story, however, so I’ll stop my kvetching, shall I, and I shall instead applaud Atwater for making Book 3 just as enjoyable as the first two in the series. One warning: This is NOT a true standalone in that you reeeeally would enjoy it more if you have good recall and can appreciate old characters just dropping in. -BUT- hey! I’m such a grand reviewer of audiobooks (Might I humbly posit?) that none (Except early reviews) are but a paragraph or two. Rather, I go for the gold, and I DID find clues within the previous reviews that assisted me in remembering who all were, and what they were all about.

Sooo, many a Mighty HUZZAH for meeeee in this review cuz obviously it was released in honor of m’ Birthday. And cuz obviously I penned thorough reviews that filled in the gaps for this story.

That said? No, really: A TRULY MIGHTY HUZZAH for Atwater. Just a trifle worried because the Epilogue spans yeeeears, and that has me worried that the series is over… A suggestion, Ms. Atwater? Doooo keep writing your genre-bending tales; they’re AWEsome!

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