The Paper Magician

By: Charlie N Holmberg
Published Year: 2014
Publisher: 47North
Pages: 224

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Summary (Provided by Goodreads): Ceony Twill arrives at the cottage of Magician Emery Thane with a broken heart. Having graduated at the top of her class from the Tagis Praff School for the Magically Inclined, Ceony is assigned an apprenticeship in paper magic despite her dreams of bespelling metal. And once she’s bonded to paper, that will be her only magic… forever.

Yet the spells Ceony learns under the strange yet kind Thane turn out to be more marvelous than she could have ever imagined — animating paper creatures, bringing stories to life via ghostly images, even reading fortunes. But as she discovers these wonders, Ceony also learns of the extraordinary dangers of forbidden magic.

An Excisioner — a practitioner of dark, flesh magic — invades the cottage and rips Thane’s heart from his chest. To save her teacher’s life, Ceony must face the evil magician and embark on an unbelievable adventure that will take her into the chambers of Thane’s still-beating heart—and reveal the very soul of the man.

                                                           First Impressions

This was a suggesting from my lovely friend Logan. I didn’t see the cover before hearing about the summary, but I definitely love it! I would have absolutely picked this up off the shelf. The summary, while a little odd, appealed to me. I’m not a huge fantasy person, I do love a little magic so I was excited to read this book.

                                                            What I thought

This book is unique. I really enjoyed it, but I could see why people would not.

The Paper Magician follows Ceony and Emery Thane. In this world, magicians harness their power through man made materials and they bond to only one material. For example, Emery Thane is a Folder, or, a paper magician. He has bonded to paper and can only manipulate magic with paper. Ceony graduates from magic school with hopes of being a Smelder, or a metal magician. However, she is told that as there are only 12 Folders left in the world, she has to become a Folder apprentice under Emery Thane.

The magic concept does take a few chapters to get used to. It’s not something that I’ve ever read before and it isn’t very developed at the beginning of the story. I would highly recommend giving this book a few chapters before passing judgement. The first few chapters I felt very thrown in the middle and it took a little while to get my bearings.

I immediately liked Emery, and even though Ceony was a bit of a bitch, I liked her too. I understood where her irritation was coming from. She had spent her year at magic school with hopes of working with metal, and then finds out that she has to work with paper, the least desirable of materials.

The only thing that threw me is that this book feels a little like two stories thrown into one. The first half of the book is very different from the second half. I wouldn’t say that they’re different in a bad way, but I felt like I was reading a different story. I don’t want to say too much because I don’t want to give anything away!

Overall, I really enjoyed this book and can’t wait to read more. The world feels like it’s starting to take shape and I hope that it continues to do so in the second novel. The characters are the strongest part of this book and even if I wasn’t in love with the writing, I think I’d continue to read it just to have more of them. I’m excited to see their relationship develop and I’m excited to see what else they’re going to do with the magic.