The Paper Magician by Charlie Holmberg

The Paper Magician - Charlie N. Holmberg

Ceony has graduated top of her magic class and is bitterly disappointed to learn that her apprenticeship and future will be in paper magic and not her lifelong dream of metal. Under the tutelage of kindly magician Emery Thane, she soon learns that there is more to paper magic than she first thought. When Emery is attacked and almost fatally injured, Ceony decides to track the person responsible in the hope that she can restore Emery to full health.

There are some really nice ideas in this novel and there are lots of charming scenes learning about paper magic and the different ways it can be used. Whilst the premise was great, the execution was not. The author seemed to struggle with the world building, at times I couldn't understand what was happening or how things had come about. It was almost as though the author, in her hurry to get things down on paper, missed out some of the crucial information, this was quite jarring and really impacted on the flow of the story.

Whilst I liked Emery's character I wasn't a huge fan of Ceony's. She is quite bitter and petulant when she first arrives at the cottage of Emery and it takes her a few days for her inner dialogue to stop whining. I also thought she was incredibly nosy, always poking into Emery's personal things as though she had every right to. During the latter part of the book Ceony rather rashly follows an experienced dark magician and shows a lot of courage in trying to help Emery but these admirable traits are then negated by the fact that when she returns to the cottage she does nothing but cook, clean and tidy up after him, doesn't say much for feminism.

The time period this is set is around 1900, but there are a lot of inconsistencies with the period setting. The clothes seem right but Ceony cooks pasta and rice. They travel in buggies but plastic is available! Again these are things that pulled me out of the story and made it really difficult to concentrate completely on what was going on.

It's still quite a charming story in a lot of ways but I'm hoping that the author has created a more consistent sequel or I may not bother finished the trilogy.