The Autumn Fairy by Brittany Fichter, 2017

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Katrin knows little about her origins, but whatever she is, it's certainly not human.On an island where humans have banned magic and hunt all who possess it, the dark power within her has become too strong to hide. With each passing day, the threat grows. For if she cannot master her terrifying abilities soon, everyone around her will suffer. And that's something she cannot accept.

While Katrin is willing to sacrifice herself to save others, Peter, her childhood friend and protector, is not. But when he promises to save her at all costs, jeopardizing his own kingdom in return, he finds that his failure will mean either Katrin’s death or the isle’s doom.

And if unraveling the source of Katrin’s power isn’t difficult enough, a mysterious and powerful stranger from the forest reveals that he has plans of his own for Katrin…and the rest of the isle.

To protect their home, Katrin and Peter must face not only their worst fears about who and what they are but their true feelings for one another as well. For if they don't, everything they love will perish...

(538 pages)

    I'd give this a solid "meh". I was initially really excited about the premise, with the girl who doesn't know who/what she is and the boy who is incredibly loyal to her.

    And in many ways, it lived up to my expectations. I loved the way Katrin started the book in a terrible place, feeling abandoned and abused by everyone she'd ever known and horrified of her own abilities. It takes her a really long time to learn more about herself, and she is fully convinced that she is a monster just waiting to kill.

    I also loved her childhood relationship with Peter, and the way they clearly have such an incredibly deep bond. Childhood friends-to-lovers is one of my absolute favourite romance stories, and this one was particularly strong.

    However, as more and more pages went by, I wound up getting increasingly frustrated with it. For one thing, the eventual plot dump of Katrin's powers, and the characters who explained stuff to her, wasn't as exciting as it could have been. It was okay, though - mostly because I was at least curious about her powers. What I really got sick of was all of the side characters I had no investment in. Peter has like six knights he travels with, and we waste way too much time getting to know them. Plus Peter's quest in the later part of the book is pretty boring; every time I was reading about it, I really just wanted to go back to Katrin.

    I actually spent most of the book way more invested in Katrin than in Peter, and I think that's because I was just really frustrated with Peter. He may clearly be halfway in love with Katrin throughout the book, but he doesn't acknowledge it at all and instead spends most of the book seeing zero problems with his plans to have her just hang around him while he's married to another woman. A woman who is clearly a terrible, manipulative person. Which he doesn't see for way too long.

    Plus, the phrase "she's like a sister to me" is used way too many times in this book. It's one thing to say it once or twice toward the beginning of the story, to show how oblivious to their feelings their characters are about their feelings, but it's a bit gross to see Peter say stuff like that throughout most of the book. I guess the only redeeming factor is that he doesn't have any actual siblings, so he doesn't know how he'd feel toward one. Because reader, he definitely does not have familial feelings toward Katrin.

    Overall, it was an entertaining read which I enjoyed, but it could have been so much more. I think someone should have gone through and chopped out some of those 500 pages. They could have made a much leaner story which would have been a bit less frustrating. I enjoyed it enough, though, that I do plan to pick up the other two books in the series. Keep an eye out for those reviews.