The Longest Autumn
A Novel
-
-
5.0 • 1 Rating
-
-
- $11.99
Publisher Description
For fans of Ariadne, a spellbinding debut fantasy about a human who gets trapped with the god of Autumn, who brings with him life-threatening danger and a forbidden romance.
Under the right circumstances, would even a god fall?
Tirne is one of four humans rigorously selected to usher the turn of the seasons into the mortal world. Every year, she escorts the taciturn god Autumn between the godly and human realms. Autumn’s seasonal stay among mortals brings cooler weather, changing leaves, and the harvest of apples and gourds until Winter takes his place.
This year, the enchanted Mirror that separates their worlds shatters after Tirne and Autumn pass through, trapping both of them in the human realm. As the endless autumn stretches on, crops begin to fail and the threat of starvation looms. Away from the magic of the gods’ home, Tirne suffers debilitating headaches that return with a vengeance. Worse, Autumn’s extended stay in the human realm turns him ever more mortal and vulnerable, stirring a new, forbidden attraction to Tirne.
While the priesthood scrambles to find a way to reassemble the Mirror, Tirne digs into the temple’s secrets and finds an unlikely ally—or enemy—in the enigmatic sorcerer and master of poisons, Sidriel. Thrown into a world of mystery, betrayal, and espionage as she searches for the truth, might Tirne lose her morals, her hard-earned position, and the illicit spark between her and Autumn?
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Avery's atmospheric if uneven debut imagines the four seasons as deities. As a human herald of the god Autumn, it's Tirne's job to escort the personified season through the enchanted mirror that connects the godly and mortal realms at the appropriate time of year. When the mirror mysteriously shatters, however, both Tirne and Autumn are trapped in the human world. While struggling with the debilitating migraines she experiences whenever she's in the mortal realm, Tirne works with the seasons' priestesses to reconstruct the mirror, investigates why it broke in the first place, and develops unexpected feelings for the increasingly human Autumn. Meanwhile, humanity struggles through a full year of fall and the religion surrounding the gods begins to unravel. It's a fascinating premise, but Avery struggles with pacing; the tension in both the romance and the mystery fizzle out in the final third, like a cozy autumn that never quite bites into winter. Despite a lot of early promise, this falls flat.
