The mythology can feel a little bloated but the main character's journey, along with the narrator's portrayal, makes this story intriguing.. The whodunit element also helps keep readers going even as the mythology begins to feel daunting.

Okay so this book made have thoughts, like there was so much potential for this book. It just seemed like nothing was progressing in this book except for our main character's internal struggles. It also felt like everyone was sleeping together! There was no connection with anyone except our main character, her bestie, and then the God of Autumn.

Lots of villains in this one, but when the one and true one comes out it makes you think why is everyone like this? World building was also great on this. I really liked how each season was explored and given information on.

I did like the narrator and thought she did justice to the story and had a very soothing voice.

I’m always excited to switch things up with a fantasy, and was looking forward to this. With elements of scifi/fantasy, romance, magic, and mythology, it was promising, but it just never hit the mark for me unfortunately.

I listened to the audio format, which was atmospheric and performed well.

*many thanks to Macmillan Audio and Netgalley for the gifted copy for review.

The univers was great, really great. I could see myself in that loop, with the season, the mirror, the colors, and also because autumn is my favorite season. So I could feel the scents, see the colors and feel the season of autumn.

But for me, when a big part of the story is about love and betrayals... I wasn't to much in it. I was kind of disappointed when the God of Autumn was in love with Tirne. My friend made a bet on that, and I was like : No, no they wouldn't do that, and then it happened. I would have like that the story stays about the broken mirror, the solution etc. Even her love story with the suppose ''bad guy'' was annoying. I know a lot of people love those type of love story, but I thought they were forced. She could have stayed with her lover/best friend... That would have been enough.

Like I said the universe and the idea being was great, but... the love triangle and others force things were less good.

thank you to netgalley for the advanced reading copy. I really enjoyed this and will be getting copies for my shop.

I wasn't sure what to expect from this book. The reviews haven't been great. It made me a bit nervous. However, I am so glad I read it! This book reads much like a dark fairy tale. I am a huge fan of the Gothic writing in said stories. I can definitely see why so many didn't like it though. Gothic style writing is unusual for fantasy. As this was promoted, it sounded like it should be for fans of Greek Mythology. I'd say sure, if you go in expecting something along the lines of Circe. The writing is beautiful. The characters are fun to follow, though most are one note. However, I still found this book quite enjoyable.

i don't think this one works well as an audiobook. it didn't feel like that much happened throughout the story and I found myself bored.

Not my favorite sci-fi book by far, but it was ok. I listened to the audio version which did have me jumping back and forth a few times to really get a feel for what world we were in - maybe read it instead? Otherwise it was slower, not horrible, but I probably wouldn't look for others in this series.

This was an interesting twist on a fantasy novel with romance, mythology and magic. It may have been a bit long, or repetitive in the middle, but I enjoyed the ride.

While I agree with most other reviewers that this book was slow-paced, I don't fault it for that because it allowed for a more atmospheric read, which I think would be perfect for reading during the season in it's name. I was interested in this world and I wish we got to spend more time exploring it. I especially loved listening to the audiobook because the narrator did great job with it!

3.5/5

Thank you Netgalley for providing a digital ARC.

Slow moving and repetitive!
I was getting pretty frustrated by the half way mark and debated DNFing just because it felt like nothing was happening. But I did prevail and the ending was ok, it felt really rushed.
This book didn't feel like anything else that has been around lately so I was so excited for that but it honestly just fell flat for me.
But taking into consideration that this is a debut novel I think this author definitely has room to grow and could come up with something great in the future.

Thank you NetGalley for an ARC of the Longest Autumn in exchange of my honest opinion.

I had SO MUCH high hopes for this title that ended up falling flat for me.

The story is about Tirne, a human that is selected to accompany the Autum God when he is on earth but she was not expecting that when she was to help God pass between the magic mirror that separates realms, the mirrors break and now the Autumn god is trapped in the human realm.

This book have a lot of elements that I liked: the duality between humans and gods, this perception of worthiness, a forbidden romance but also epic situations.

My biggest issue with it is that I did not find the main character relatable at all. She had been chosen for this very respectable and one of a kind task and she sounded whinny and did not take enough charge for me right out of the bat.
Also, right at the beginning of the book I could see that the author was trying to push the tension and interest of Autumn for Tirne but there was no angst at all for me.
The rest of the book was also paced in a way that it was hard for me to get into it.

Points that I enjoy was that the writing was really pretty and I liked the descriptions and how the author immersed us in this world.
Additionally, I thought the audiobook narrator did a good job interpreting the characters, but was not enough to grab my attention at several parts.

Thank you to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for the opportunity to listen to an early copy of THE LOST AUTUMN audiobook!

Overall, I don't think this book was a good fit for me, but could definitely see it being enjoyed by many! I struggled connecting with the characters, their relationships with each other, or the story.

However, I do think the author's writing style is lovely. The prose was so atmospheric and ethereal, which is what you want with much of the elements contained in this story.

For the audiobook performance, I think the narrator did very well at embodying the sultry and atmospheric tone of the book..

Because I enjoyed the writing style so much, I think I would possibly be interested in trying another book from this author in the future. This one was just a miss for me!

I liked this book. I was intrigued with how the curse was going to go and the dynamic between a god and his human. I did not expect the turn it took, casting her out of their society. If you want a book about a seemingly devout worshiper who is actually just really ambitious and will do whatever it takes to get her job back with 2 minor sub-romances with her god and the "bad, not to be trusted" guy who actually can help her, that's full of spice and no HEA with either of them, then this might be the book for you!

Spoilers -> I did not expect the ending to end that way. I definitely wanted more romance, I didn't care who it was with. I would've rather had the romance just be with Autumn or with the other guy, Sidriel? (Audiobook so I can't spell the names!) and for her to end with neither and not have her job...like what is she going to be doing? She got closure in the epilogue from both men, sort of. As a reader, I didn't feel like I was given the closure I needed and still want. I feel let down by the ending. I wish there was more involved with the other creatures that were mentioned, the opposite faith. It felt like the story skipped over the lore that could've been given there. Just saying oh yeah that's what it is, this is how it is, etc. And then the part where she just knew what Vix(?) was... okay. Cool. Outside of those things, which all made the ending lack luster for me, I enjoyed the rest of the book

Thank you to Netgalley and Macmillan Audio for the ALC! ♥

I really wanted to love this, but it just wasn't for me.

What I enjoyed:
-I loved the magic system. The personification of the seasons as deities and the way they travel between the god realm and human realm for each of their seasons was very interesting.
-The FMCs best friend was really great Aro spectrum representation. The author managed to depict him as someone who doesn't feel romantic attraction while also still being someone interested in sex. So often Aro/Ace spectrum characters are written as both aro/ace and I appreciated seeing slightly different representation

What I disliked:
-Just about everything else.
-The FMC was insufferable and her character arc didn't make much sense to me
-The pacing...this book dragged on. If the narrator hadn't had such a soothing voice, I probably wouldve dnfed.

2.5 rounded up to 3 for goodreads.

Dear The Longest Autumn,
While I did enjoy your fantastical world of seasons and gods, you were problematic for me as well. I didn't love the fact that Tirne romantically entangled herself with people that she knew did not have he rbest interests at heart, and she seemed to knowingly do it to punish herself. It pulled your story down for me. But on the up side, your world was intriguing enough that I wanted to know stories of the other herals, to be able to peel into their relationships with their god and see through their eyes. You had so much potential, but I found Tirne difficult to relate to and understand her motivations for a lot of her actions. The rest of the cast of characters, which was large, all felt shallowly drawn and predictable as well. Great world, but sup-par characters left me with mixed feelings about you.

Not what i anticipated at first but i wound up loving this book. It was a bit slow but the writing was so beautiful and vivid and descriptive. The ending seemed very real and the relationships were fun to read about.

3.75✨

Debut author. Fantasy. LGBTQIA+ rep. Disability rep.

The Longest Autumn takes place in a fantastical world where each season is a god, and they have Heralds (honored human assistants) who help them usher in their season each year by passing through a mirror from the gods’ realm to the human. The main character, Tierne, is Autumn’s Herald, but when after passing through the mirror, it shatters, Tierne is blamed for its destruction and the seasonal balance is put in jeopardy. It is up to Tierne to figure out who’s to blame for the mirrors destruction, or else lose her position as Herald.

[Audiobook Review: I often have trouble starting books, and audiobooks usually help me connect to the story and characters faster and make me more excited to keep reading. This audiobook definitely did the trick. I probably only used the audio for the first 1/3rd of the book, but it definitely did its job. The narrator was engaging, and I was enjoying the story so much I took the trainer’s wheels off and sped through the rest of the book via ebook.]

Not gonna lie, this book sort of lost the plot, but I still very much enjoyed it. For me, the strong suit in this book is the characters, character relationships, and the atmosphere/world. Each character is refreshingly flawed, including Tierne, and the politics of how they obtain their wants and needs sometimes at the expense of others kept me invested until the very end. Even the characters I hated, I loved to hate. I also liked the backdrop of their world and the history and lore that came with it. Sometimes fantasy books that have worship/religion in them don’t really work for me, but for some reason, this one did.

Where this book fell short for me was the plot, which very much had to do with the mystery of who destroyed the mirror. My main struggle with the plot was the meandering way that it went on (i.e. Tierne would find a lead and then not know where to go next with it, etc.), which somewhat threw the pacing off. Even so, I was so invested in the characters and what would happen next to them, that the pacing didn’t bother me too much.

I would recommend this book to fantasy/fantasy-romance readers who love character-driven stories (and lots of LGBTQIA+ rep) in immensely atmospheric worlds. I’ll definitely be reading more from this author should they come out with another novel.

This book had potential, if only the characters weren't so boring. The concept of the seasons being embodied by gods is interesting. The gods must each be run the world at certain points in order to keep things going, and the one time one thing goes wrong the world almost ends. However, we were so into the mystery of "who destroyed the magical mirror that acts as a portal" that we didn't even get to explore other things such as maybe giving us some flashbacks into the gods realm in order to see what exactly this woman does with her life the other time she is not being a literal ferry woman in between the realms. It doesn't seem like the gods do anything really, other than pleasure concubines and botch investigations. The "romance" was also major ick between Autumn and the MC, since Autumn is barely a character, they come off as being the biggest prick in history. On the good side, there is a serious enemies to lovers situation going on, like the guy is truly on the shady side, and there are multiple romances that show things such as asexuality rep, multiple partners, etc. So points for the rep, but again why are the characters so damn bland? My plain toast has some spice.

Cool concept, should have explored some things deeper and with more excitement.

PS; I really liked the narrator, if it hadn't been for her voice I probably would have DNFd. Her voice is soothing (I did have to read at 1.75x-2x since she reads a bit slowly, but at the faster speed her tone still comes through without sounding like a robot).

The Longest Autumn is a brilliant standalone of enemies, lovers, and gods; in a dark, complex world.
"Tirne is one of four humans rigorously selected to usher the turn of the seasons into the mortal world." I mean what more do you need to want to read this? I knew I wanted to read this right from and I couldn't be more happy that I did.
There is so much I love about this book. The writing is beautiful while having an uneasy feeling to it. There are many themes in this book like chronic headache and migraine representation. As someone who battles with migraine, this is one that I could relate to, and felt it was well written.
We are following Tirne in a world of magic, gods, and the changing of seasons. She is assigned to the god of Autumn and on the day they are to enter an enchanted mirror to bring in the changing of seasons the mirror shatters as they pass through it tapping them into the mortal world with the blame falling onto Tirne. Even though this book is lable as romance, it's not as strong as what I thought it was going to be and I'm glad that it is that way.
This rich-filled, dreamy fantasy debut is a page-turner of an intriguing story of a human, the god of Autum wrapped in mystery.