Spotlight on Spellbinding “The Book of Autumn” by Molly O’Sullivan

About The Book of Autumn

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.

With its school of magic, amateur sleuthing, and romantic subplot, this debut novel delivers an engaging, escapist read with emotion, heart, and magic – sure to readers who enjoy genre bending plots that subvert category and make for spectacular escapist reads.

Inspired by Mark Z. Danielewski’s House of Leaves, O’Sullivan wrote her novel in the form of an anthropological research paper, complete with footnotes, notebook and diary clippings, religious annotations, and quotes from ancient philosophy and metaphysics. This adds an extra level of “dark academia” to the novel that is not yet as common in the genre.

Many readers will resonate with the protagonist’s battle as she fights back against systemic misogyny and class prejudice in her professional community. The students at school are entangled in blurry student/teacher relationships and exploited by a male-dominated party scene, experiences deeply relevant to ongoing conversations following the #MeToo movement. And with student protests (regarding a variety of discontents) gaining momentum across Ivy League campuses, criticism of academic elitism is top of mind in the cultural conversation.