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.
The Paper Magician by Charlie N. Holmberg is a fantasy book set in Victorian England. I was instantly drawn to the concept that people could manipulate paper into doing magical things. It reminded me of a favorite anime, Read Or Die, where a booknerd is able to do magical things with paper. Though the Folding magic is different from the R.O.D. magic, it is still awesome.
This was actually my second attempt at this book. The first time, I wasn’t feeling the narrator and decided to read something else. This time, though, I was feeling the book. I was hooked the moment Magician Emery Thane appeared. His dark hair, green eyes, and a mystery to him… you can tell I have a little book crush on him.
Aside from crushing over Thane or even the magical paper, I found the book itself to be an interesting book filled with flashbacks. The last half is basically Ceony on a serious trip through Thane’s history. Which would sound boring, except I found how she got there and the story within the story very interesting.
This is only the first book in the series and I already have the second book downloading onto my Audible app. All in all, I’ll be listening to it soon.
Casia's Corner 