The plot structure is a bold concept but the story could have dragged as the mechanics of the plot were followed. The magic is new so there’s a lot to explain. In a further surprise, Ceony’s struggle turns out to be a very unconventional one, involving very high concept magic that is well thought through and woven into a clever plot structure that combines the physical rescue of the magician’s heart, a review of key moments from his life and from Ceony’s and dramatic, very physical conflicts between Ceony and the evil magician who stole the heart. From that point on the level of violence increases as Ceony struggles to retrieve her magician’s heart. The violence of this was quite unexpected and very effective. Then, suddenly the story changed both in tone and in structure and took me to somewhere quite unexpected. Ceony’s magician is attacked at home, in front of Ceony and has his heart ripped out and taken away by an evil magician. The Magician was kind-hearted, a little distracted, remarkably unsexist for a man of his generation and clearly had secrets. The magic Ceony was taught to achieve by folding paper was original and imaginative. Ceony was an earnest young woman with a troubled past, a strong spirit and an innocently optimistic view of the world. I settled down to see how Ceony, our hard-working and talented young apprentice would prove herself to her endearingly eccentric Magician. “The Paper Magician” takes place in an alternative Edwardian England in which Magicians, people bonded to a particular man-made material, are able to work magic with it, producing bullets that don’t miss or animating paper birds so they can fly, are part of the establishment.Īt the start, the story seemed to be a pleasant but conventional tale of the first days of a talented young woman’s apprenticeship to a Magician bonded with paper.

I don’t normally reveal plot elements but I can’t review this book without sharing some of the early events. A bold plot structure and startlingly original magic lifts this, sometimes graphically violent, YA Edwardian adventure into something special SPOILER ALERT

The paper magician book