Autumn by Sierra Dean

Dog Days #1. Month9Books (June 2013) NetGalley

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.

Eloise "Lou" Whittaker lost her father to cancer. If that wasn't too much of a heartbreak for Lou, her mom has decided to move her all the way to nowheresville to a small town called Poisonfoot where her grandmother lives. So not only has she lost her father who she was very close with, she also loses all of her friends and the life she's always known. When she tries to make friends with the resident loner, Cooper, in her new town she's met with a lot of warnings about his character when he seems like a very normal, nice guy. Lou is determined to find out the conspiracy this small town has with Cooper and the Reynolds' family but as she delves deeper into the mystery of this particular family she discovers that she may have a connection with a supposed curse. What will happen when all is revealed to Lou?

Lou and Cooper are really likable characters. I connected with them both right away. Lou is this tomboy that is supposed to put out this tough exterior to the world but really is a sweetheart. Cooper is treated like an outcast but from what I can tell he is one of the nicest people in town. He keeps to himself and tries to stay out of everyone's way but he is still treated like the worst human being in the world. Lou and Cooper are just a match made in heaven. I love when they are together and seeing them interact. They are both such nice people and it's rare for me not to be able to think of anything (even slightly) bad about two main characters  who are romantically involved with one another. They don't make dumb choices. They don't hurt one another. They were a breath of fresh air. It was slightly bothersome for the whole town and Cooper repeating to Lou that she should stay away from Cooper but it is a minor detail in an otherwise great book.

I must have not read the summary correctly before reading this book because the series name "Dog Days" made me assume it was going to be about wolves. I actually really liked that the curse dealt with coyotes and not wolves because wolves/werewolf stories are so common. Coyote curses not so much. I enjoyed discovering this curse with Lou and discovering some other interesting things about the small town she lives in. I didn't want to stop reading and the cliffhanger at the end was simply amazing. I stayed up all night reading Autumn until my eyes screamed for me to stop. I can't wait to read the rest of the series especially since I see potential for another love interest. That might be a turnoff for some people but it's not as bad as you think. 

Overall: Autumn will keep you guessing and keep you wanting more well after you finished its story. It has fantastic characters that you can really care for and it has a great mystery and plot. I definitely recommend you give this one a try!