Review: Autumn by Sierra Dean (Spooktacular Paranormal Reading Challenge!)

Released: January 1, 2013
Publisher: Create Space
Series: Dog Days, #1
Star Rating: 3 out of 5
Source: Netgalley
Edition: eBook
Page Amount: 262
Age Group: Young Adult

Cooper Reynolds's life is going to the dogs... literally. As if being a high school senior in a small Texas town wasn't hard enough, Cooper has bigger things to worry about than who he'll take to prom and whether or not the Poisonfoot Padres will win homecoming. He has less than a year before his eighteenth birthday, when a curse placed on his family will doom him to live in coyote form forever. The last thing he needs to complicate his already messed-up life is a girl, but fate has other plans in mind for him when it brings Eloise "Lou" Whittaker to Poisonfoot. She's grouchy, sarcastic and has no love for her new Texas home, but she might be exactly the right person to help Cooper break the curse. The clock is ticking, and Cooper will have to decide if he's willing to let Lou in on his dirty little secret before it's too late.

Autumn was not at all what I was expecting. First of all, I went into this novel fully believing that I was about to read a contemporary novel. Looking back on that now, it appears as though I didn't read the synopsis very well because it gives away right there that this is not, in fact, a contemporary novel. While I was reading and realized this, I was pleasantly surprised that this wasn't a contemporary because I've really been into paranormal novels lately.

Although the plot of this novel isn't particularly original (while I was reading I found that it was a mixture of Shiver and Beautiful Creatures), it was still enjoyable to read about. Although, I felt like this book could have gone on longer into Lou and Cooper's story. It felt too short and the ending felt forced.

I fell in love with Cooper and his siblings in this novel, Mia especially. Mia was the sassy younger sister that is always annoying Cooper, and I loved their relationship. Lou really didn't do anything for me, really. She felt two dimensional and was slightly boring in my opinion.

Texas is a state that I have always wanted to visit, yet the books I read never seem to be set there. It was interesting to read about a new place when most books are set in other, more popular states.

Overall, this novel was a short, enjoyable read and I can't wait to see what happens in the future books in this series.

About the Author

Sierra Dean is a reformed historian. She was born and raised in the Canadian prairies and is allowed annual exit visas in order to continue her quest of steadily conquering the world one city at a time. Making the best of the cold Canadian winters, Sierra indulges in her less global interests: drinking too much tea and writing urban fantasy.

Ever since she was a young girl she has loved the idea of the supernatural coexisting with the mundane. As an adult, however, the idea evolved from the notion of fairies in flower beds, to imagining that the rugged-looking guy at the garage might secretly be a werewolf. She has used her overactive imagination to create her own version of the world, where vampire, werewolves, fairies, gods and monsters all walk among us, and she’ll continue to travel as much as possible until she finds it for real.

She’s also a book lover (of course!), obsessive collector of OPI nailpolish and the owner of way too many pairs of shoes.