I received an ARC copy of Molly O’Sullivan‘s The Book of Autumn from Kensington Publishing.

Try as she might, anthropologist Marcella Gibbons can’t escape the fact that she’s a dimidium, one half of a formidable pair of Magicians, forever tied together to enable the other’s powers. After a tumultuous final year at Seinford and Brown College of Agriculture (and Magic) in rural New Mexico, Cella felt more than a little uneasy about returning to the sun-drenched desert campus ever again. She’d cut ties with her other half—the charming and rugged rancher Max Middlemore—and sworn off Magic, academia, and heartache for good.

Until Max turns up at her door, grinning under his cowboy hat for one last favor. Something is shifting at her alma mater, something bigger than anyone understands. One student is dead. Another is floating midair in the infirmary, growling guttural nonsense and terrifying the staff. Their best, perhaps only, chance to intervene requires Cella and Max to work together. But the origins of the disturbances lie centuries ago. To unravel them, Cella will have to confront the truth about her past—and Max. Because she might be challenging a power she could never rival alone . . .

This review contains a spoiler. I’m super angry about how this book ended, and I want to talk about it. But it’s a spoiler. I’ll try to be as oblique as possible, but you’ve been warned.

First, the positives: The prose here is lovely. The book is atmospheric, and the location is almost a character on its own. It was honestly a joy to read.

Second, a small (maybe irrelevant) critique: There are a couple of timeline snags. Places where Cella knows things that she can’t have been told yet, for example. Now, I read an ARC, so maybe those get fixed, and you can ignore this one.

Third, a few minor personal detractions: I never felt the romance here. By this, I mean I didn’t sense the two falling back in love or that they ever adequately addressed the reason they broke up. Neither seemed to fight for their supposed great love. Also, the plot is pretty slow and sometimes a little disjointed.

Fourth, the giant glaring problem that made me seethe and the spoiler: Cella spends the whole damned book wrestling with the fact that she ran away because she was tired of being in Max’s shadow. Always overlooked because he is a man, and thus she (as a woman) was relegated to tag-along, assistant, or girlfriend, despite being a complete equal (maybe even the driving force) of their work. This was a perfectly understandable complaint, one I feel was never appropriately addressed between them. But then O’Sullivan wrote a climax in which, despite Cella’s best efforts, Max saves the day. Putting Cella (the main character) smack dab IN HIS SHADOW. I’d detract a whole damned star for this.

Other Reviews:

The Book of Autumn by Molly O’Sullivan