'The Paper Magician' by Charlie N. Holmberg

Official Summary:
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.

Review:

'The Paper Magician' surprised me. It was one of those books that thanks to the magic of Amazon suggestions became an unavoidable mainstay in the store, in the online suggestions carousel and on the dreaded Kindle advertisement screensaver that I'm both too cheap to get rid of and loathe to dismiss due to its (unfortunate) benefit. Amazon really wanted me to read this title but it was $11 - not much when your know what your buying but on a brand new author's brand new series, well, now we're starting some strange internal conflict*. But eventually I broke. Amazon worked its magic and after nearly two months of having it constantly shoved in my face I lost my resolve around midnight someday near Christmas.

Given the story above I'd have every right to be a little peeved with Amazon for winning yet another round of "will she read it?" but I should know better by now. The all-knowing Amazon suggestions algorithm was right, again, and so I'm here to tell you that this book was, actually "...an extraordinary adventure both dark and whimsical that will delight readers..."

Bottom Line: Not only did I shell out the $11 for the privileged of reading 'The Paper Magician' but I was so in love with it that I immediately picked up 'The Glass Magician' and have 'The Master Magician' in my cross-hairs for swift purchase when it gets released into the wild on June 2nd of this year. If you like reading anything with even a little bit of whimsy you'll love these books.

*Usually along the lines of, "$11!, I don't need to spend that much on a book... an electronic copy of the book at that. That's insane!" followed by, "Yeah, yeah, yeah - I get it. But the whole point of reading this stuff is to enjoy it. Not torture yourself with crap just because it's cheap." Round and round we go on that for a while until I usually tire myself out and pick the least expensive book on the wish list, or one of the host of books collecting dust on my home screen, a.k.a. the TBR pile. 

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