Title: The Glass Magician (The Paper Magician #2)
Author: Charlie N. Holmberg
Pages: 222
Publication Date: November 14th 2014
Publication: 47North
My rating: 4 stars
Summary: Three months after returning Magician Emery Thane’s heart to his body, Ceony Twill is well on her way to becoming a Folder. Unfortunately, not all of Ceony’s thoughts have been focused on paper magic. Though she was promised romance by a fortuity box, Ceony still hasn’t broken the teacher-student barrier with Emery, despite their growing closeness.
When a magician with a penchant for revenge believes that Ceony possesses a secret, he vows to discover it…even if it tears apart the very fabric of their magical world. After a series of attacks target Ceony and catch those she holds most dear in the crossfire, Ceony knows she must find the true limits of her powers…and keep her knowledge from falling into wayward hands.
Source: Goodreads
The Glass Magcian by Charlie N. Holmberg is the second book in The Paper Magician series. It picks up from the last book with the story of Ceony’s life as an apprentice for becoming a paper magician. The elements that I liked about this book were the plot development and the characters- both the good guys and the bad guys. The one element that I did not like was the romance in this book; its not the most exciting element of the story.
In the previous book, the action was good, but in this book it is more happening. As a reader, I felt that the exploration of magic with other elements allowed for more exicitng and adventurous things to happen. Although, these different types of magic are explained in the previous book, they are fully explored in this book. It happens because of the introduction of new characters and villains, so I got to appreciate the beauty of other cool magic as well. Even though Ceony travels through a heart in the previous book, this book contains adventure and thrill that is more traditional in nature. There are running away scenes, chasing villain scenes, kidnapping scenes and much more, which made the book a fun read. All this action was well-paced and built up nicely; nothing happened too fast or too slow, except for one thing, which I will address below.
The characters were good; I loved both the good guys and the villains. I liked Delilah’s character in this book because she is such a nice and helpful friend. Emery’s character is weird and nice at the same time; he is different from the stereotypical heroes because of his weird and enigmatic personality. I slightly disliked Ceony’s character in this book because she leans towards being a stereotypical female protagonist who runs into danger because she does not want anyone else getting hurt, no matter how much she worsens the situation because of her involvement. When it comes to the villain, Grath is a well-developed villain. He is evil and someone I did not like at all; the reader is provided with his evil backstory and he is like the traditional villain- cunning and cruel. These aspects of the characters gave a nice dimension to the story and only dampened the thrill in a few ways.
When I first thought about the romance in this book, I thought I liked it. I thought I liked its slow development because it felt right with the things happening around Ceony and Emery. However, now when I think about it, the relationship seems misplaced in the whole book. The tension between the two characters should not have been highlighted because it does not feel important with whatever is happening. I ship these two characters, but I think their relationship could have been dealt with in a better way.
The Glass Magician by Charlie N. Holmberg is a good story and it lived upto my expectations. The plot development was good and the characters were great in their own way. However, I did not like how Ceony and Emery’s relationship was handled; I wanted them to sort things out in this book, but even though they did, it felt like they did not. I am currently reading the last book in this series, so I hope all ends well there than it ended here.
Books R My Cup of Tea 