The Paper Magician (The Paper Magician, #1)

by Charlie N. Holmberg

“Charlie is a vibrant writer with an excellent voice and great world building. I thoroughly enjoyed the Paper Magician.” —Brandon Sanderson, author of Mistborn and The Way of Kings

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.

From the imaginative mind of debut author Charlie N. Holmberg, The Paper Magician is an extraordinary adventure both dark and whimsical that will delight readers of all ages.

• ISBN10: 1477823832
• ISBN13: 9781477823835
• Publish Date: 1 September 2014
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Publisher: Amazon Publishing
• Imprint: 47North
• Format: Paperback (US Trade)
• Pages: 224
• Language: English

Reviews

[gmcgregor]

It's not really clear in Charlie Holmberg's The Paper Magician if one needs to have been born with magic. Ceony Twill doesn't seem to have manifested any particular powers from what we learn about her life before attending Tagis Praff School for the Magically Inclined. But she does want to learn magic, and maybe that's good enough. In the world Holmberg builds, students take the classes they want and experiment and may aspire to a particular kind of magic, but ultimately are bonded to one particular kind of substance through which they can perform it. Ceony longs to be bonded to metal, but instead, because of a lack of paper magicians, she's sent to Emery Thane, to become his apprentice.

Ceony sulks a little but I was pleasantly surprised at how non-mopey she generally was...it seems like characters like this are usually 100% pro-pity parties. But even though she wishes it hadn't been so, she dedicates herself to learning the craft of paper magic. She's settling into a mostly comfortable groove when suddenly she and Emery, on who she is starting to develop a bit of a crush, are brutally attacked by an evil magician, and although she's been forbidden to, she (of course) adventures to save him. She has to make a journey, both literal and metaphorical, through his heart in order to do so.

The journey through the heart is where most of the character development comes from. It's in a way a kind of blunt plot device...instead of having to learn things about her Emery's inner life organically, she's treated to highlight and lowlight reels of the most sensitive, defining moments of his life. But I think it works, mostly. It not only rounds out his character, but it makes her growing crush seem less like the oh-so-tiresome InstaLove trope. And the system of magic that Holmberg creates for her world is fresh and interesting. But at the end of the day, this isn't high literature. It's fluffy, and perfect for the way I read it: on an airplane. Or at a beach. It's pleasant and light and thinking about it too hard isn't recommended. There are sequels, but I'm not nearly invested enough to seek them out. If you need something to help pass the time, though, you could do a lot worse.

[ross91]

This book is terrible. Really terrible. It's rare that I give 1 star to a book, but in this case it really deserves it.
I've bought the paper magician for its beautiful cover and the synopsis, but I was really disappointed.
The main protagonist, Ceony, is incredibly whiny and noisy, she doesn't have any respect for her master and she is too curious to be true. She becomes angry when her master doesn't tell her anything about his life, even though they know each other for less than a day. Sooo annoying.
The book was short (the italian version has 200 pages more or less) but it felt incredibly long to read.
It's supposed to be set at the beginning of the XX century, but the way the characters talk and some aspects of their lives (especially the food) seemed more current and unbelievable.
The story was not bad, but it all seemed like a first draft that needed a lot of editorial work and more effort.

[e_rodz_leb]

I was first intrigued by The Paper Magician because I loved its cover.  The crumpled paper, the woman wearing an old-fashioned dress, the umbrella and paper plane and heart seemed all so different.  I am glad that I gave this story a chance because I ended up loving it.

By the ratings in Goodreads and some of the comments I can tell that this book was misunderstood.  Maybe I had better look with it because I love all things fantasy, steampunk, magic, historical and such.  The Paper Magician takes place in a London were magic is cherished and accepted.  There are magicians, schools, apprenticeships, and a whole infrastructure for anything magic.  In this ‘world’ magic is learned to manipulate or animate substances created by men, for instance rubber, metal, paper, and glass. There is also a forbidden magic, manipulating people by use of blood, this is called Excision.

These characters!  Can I just tell you how much I love them? Ceony finished magic school in one year and it is quite a feat to do, but then again, she has a photographic memory.  She is mandated to be the apprentice to a paper magician because they are lowering in numbers and she doesn’t have a choice in the matter.  She is quite upset, until she figures out that being a paper magician is not as terrible as she thought.  Ceony had had her share of bad luck in life even though she’s young.  She’s loyal, loving, a great cook, smart, but not perfect.

“Perhaps the man wasn’t so mad after all. Or maybe it’s a madness that I can learn to appreciate.”

Emery Thane is a paper magician and he’s a bit eccentric. He’s organized to a fault, paranoid, he dislikes most people and likes his peace and quiet.  He’s had a hard life and he’s very private about it.  He’s also very patient with Ceony, he’s just and kind; in short he’s very easy to fall in love with :)  The “romance” is very slow burning and more of a promise of the future in the first installment of the trilogy.

As I explained before, the setting is London, but a different in an alternate past.  Women go to school, have professions, are respected and valued in this society.  It is not frowned up to have a male and female student/teacher combination.  Divorce is commonplace and accepted too!  The writing is so good.  I loved all the descriptions, the world building, the back stories.

“I don’t know how many women can claim to have walked a man’s heart, but I’ve walked yours,”

Now we come to the part that is, well, “strange”.  The first part of the book is dedicated to the background story, but the second half is very different.  I don’t want to spoil the book for you, but I think that Holmberg uses the trip to Emery’s heart (remember there is magic in play her people!) to achieve two things: first, Ceony has a change to know and understand Emery very quickly because she is traveling through his past, his memories, his fears and hopes.  Second, this exploration gives both Ceony and Emory a chance to fall in love faster, after all now they ‘know’ each other in a more intimate way.

Overall, The Paper Magician was a great (if strange) beginning to a great series.  I already finished The Glass Magician and I adored it (review soon!)  I cannot wait for The Master Magician, the last book in the series, which will be published in July.

 This review was originally posted on Reading With ABC

[lizarodz]

I was first intrigued by The Paper Magician because I loved its cover.  The crumpled paper, the woman wearing an old-fashioned dress, the umbrella and paper plane and heart seemed all so different.  I am glad that I gave this story a chance because I ended up loving it.

By the ratings in Goodreads and some of the comments I can tell that this book was misunderstood.  Maybe I had better look with it because I love all things fantasy, steampunk, magic, historical and such.  The Paper Magician takes place in a London were magic is cherished and accepted.  There are magicians, schools, apprenticeships, and a whole infrastructure for anything magic.  In this ‘world’ magic is learned to manipulate or animate substances created by men, for instance rubber, metal, paper, and glass. There is also a forbidden magic, manipulating people by use of blood, this is called Excision.

These characters!  Can I just tell you how much I love them? Ceony finished magic school in one year and it is quite a feat to do, but then again, she has a photographic memory.  She is mandated to be the apprentice to a paper magician because they are lowering in numbers and she doesn’t have a choice in the matter.  She is quite upset, until she figures out that being a paper magician is not as terrible as she thought.  Ceony had had her share of bad luck in life even though she’s young.  She’s loyal, loving, a great cook, smart, but not perfect.

“Perhaps the man wasn’t so mad after all. Or maybe it’s a madness that I can learn to appreciate.”

Emery Thane is a paper magician and he’s a bit eccentric. He’s organized to a fault, paranoid, he dislikes most people and likes his peace and quiet.  He’s had a hard life and he’s very private about it.  He’s also very patient with Ceony, he’s just and kind; in short he’s very easy to fall in love with :)  The “romance” is very slow burning and more of a promise of the future in the first installment of the trilogy.

As I explained before, the setting is London, but a different in an alternate past.  Women go to school, have professions, are respected and valued in this society.  It is not frowned up to have a male and female student/teacher combination.  Divorce is commonplace and accepted too!  The writing is so good.  I loved all the descriptions, the world building, the back stories.

“I don’t know how many women can claim to have walked a man’s heart, but I’ve walked yours,”

Now we come to the part that is, well, “strange”.  The first part of the book is dedicated to the background story, but the second half is very different.  I don’t want to spoil the book for you, but I think that Holmberg uses the trip to Emery’s heart (remember there is magic in play her people!) to achieve two things: first, Ceony has a change to know and understand Emery very quickly because she is traveling through his past, his memories, his fears and hopes.  Second, this exploration gives both Ceony and Emory a chance to fall in love faster, after all now they ‘know’ each other in a more intimate way.

Overall, The Paper Magician was a great (if strange) beginning to a great series.  I already finished The Glass Magician and I adored it (review soon!)  I cannot wait for The Master Magician, the last book in the series, which will be published in July.

 This review was originally posted on Reading With ABC

[Jack]

Review to come. Pretty good, dragged in the middle, but wished there was more exploration/information regarding the world the author created.