The Paper Magician

by Charlie N. Holmberg

214 pages

English language

Published April 17, 2014 by 47North.

ISBN:: 978-1-4778-2383-5

(36 reviews)

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 …

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

2 editions

writh reviewed The Paper Magician by Charlie N. Holmberg

Review of 'The Paper Magician' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

The beginning and the end of this book were both fantastic. The magic system is a lot of fun. The characters were interesting and their interactions were entertaining. The problem was in the middle. A large chunk of this book takes place with the main character in a magical trap, which is not a problem in an of itself, but the fact that during this huge chunk of the book, she does not actually interact with other "real" characters, just the magical avatars of them. It was a slog through that part of the book, which as I say was not small. If she was in this trap with some other characters, and we got to see them interact, then it would have been more forgivable. As it was, it was still a pretty good read. I would not discourage anyone from reading it.

B. Zelkovich reviewed The Paper Magician by Charlie N. Holmberg

Review of 'The Paper Magician' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

For such a small book, with very thin world building, I was completely enthralled. These characters captured me, and I am very excited to move on to the sequel.

cargide reviewed The Paper Magician by Charlie N. Holmberg

Review of 'The Paper Magician' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

Un libro muy corto, y con eso consigue que haya cosas que chirríen en las decisiones de la protagonista.
La ambientación deja con ganas de mucho más, porque solo presenta un par de ramas de magia pero deja intuir mucha más profundidad.

jayvall reviewed The Paper Magician by Charlie N. Holmberg

Review of 'The Paper Magician' on 'Goodreads'

2 stars

This just wasn't that good. I had heard a lot of buzz about it which is why I had put it on my list in the first place, but I was just terribly bored throughout the whole thing. Apparently, it's set in Victorian England, but there's no way I would have known that if I hadn't read someone else's review. The only thing I know about Ceony is that she has orange hair. I was actually willing to give the slow world building a chance until the bad magician came and stole Thane's heart. At that point, the book because an adventure quest, which I don't really love, having read more than enough of those as a child, and then I kept hoping that the quest wasn't going to be the entire story, and that Ceony would get out of Thane's heart and there would be more plot development, but there wasn't. So I started skimming at about 60% and didn't stop until I hit 90%. And even then, I didn't really care what was happening, just by then, I wanted to know how it ended.

I already have the second book in the trilogy, and it looks like the third might be interesting as well, but I won't be bothering with this series anymore. There's too many other books I'm excited about to waste time on ones that I'm not.

jellybeyreads reviewed The Paper Magician by Charlie N. Holmberg

Review of 'The Paper Magician' on 'Goodreads'

2 stars

Dumb. Dumb, dumb, dumb. I can't hate it--it's too inoffensive and insipid and dumb to hate.

Its really a shame this book is so dumb. The premise is pretty cool: people who go to the magic academy are only able to do magic with one substance (eg glass, paper, metal) after they are "bonded" to the substance. Paper Magicians work via, essentially, magic origami. Neat. Unfortunately the premise is completely squandered.

So many things I dislike about this book. A sampling:
1. The details for the time period (supposedly late 19th century?) are off. The language, the clothing details, the costs of things. Lazy.
2. The location is off. It's supposed to be London, but everything sounds American. They're eating biscuits and gravy, for crying out loud, which is not only unavailable in the UK but "biscuit" means something entirely different. Lazy.
3. Ceony doesn't like Magician Thane, except then he's magicked out of commission and suddenly she decides she's in love with him. Why? He's only ever been dismissive and kind of an asshole to her. But this burning passion is enough for her to go on an adventure to fight the Evil Woman and save him.
3. The Evil Woman is also motivated entirely by her (poorly developed) feelings about Emery Thane. My, he does inspire the women around him to greatness, doesn't he? Thank goodness there's a man around to ensure women can reach their full potential by falling in love with him.
4. We spend a lot of time traipsing around inside a heart. Yes, a heart, which houses physical representations of memories. That's kind of interesting, actually, except all those many many pages in which we are inside a heart watching memories of Emery Thane's past are pages not spent on the actual story at hand. Or on Ceony. Poor Ceony. Such a pathetic protagonist she's not even allowed to be the book's central figure.

Done now. Can't believe I spent the time to finish this tripe. Actually, that might be an insult to tripe.

LemonSky reviewed The Paper Magician by Charlie N. Holmberg

Review of 'The Paper Magician' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

Ceony Twill has worked very hard to become a magician. She comes from a poor family, so it has been harder for her than most of the other students. Strong-willed, intelligent, and determined, she has graduated at the top of the class and dreams of becoming a Smelter - an enchanted of metal. Unfortunately, that is not what she gets. Ceony is told that she must become a Folder - an enchanter of paper - since there is a shortage of this specialty. Once she is bound to her element, paper, Ceony will not be able to enchant anything else. She will not be able to change specialties. Ceony is crushed - all her dreams have come to naught. Deeply unhappy, she reluctantly goes to the home of her new teacher, Emery Thane. Ceony quickly realizes there is more to Folding than she thought - and a great deal more to her teacher. Perhaps this won't be so bad after all.

An entertaining, easy read. Charlie Holmberg has created an interesting world with an imaginative, unusual magic system. I especially enjoyed all the paper creations, especially Fennel, the paper dog that Emery makes for Ceony because she had to leave her beloved dog behind (Emery is allergic to them). Ceony is smart, brave, and loyal and never gives up, no matter how bad things get. I really liked her. I am very interested in the next installment, "The Glass Magician," which is due out in November.

On a side note, I do wish Amazon would be more careful in their product descriptions. I think they gave too much away of the place. Fortunately, I didn't read this until after I read the book.