The Master Magician (The Paper Magician Trilogy #3) By: Charlie N. Holmberg

Plot:

Throughout her studies, Ceony Twill has harbored a secret, one she’s kept from even her mentor, Emery Thane. She’s discovered how to practice forms of magic other than her own — an ability long thought impossible.

While all seems set for Ceony to complete her apprenticeship and pass her upcoming final magician’s exam, life quickly becomes complicated. To avoid favoritism, Emery sends her to another paper magician for testing, a Folder who despises Emery and cares even less for his apprentice. To make matters worse, a murderous criminal from Ceony’s past escapes imprisonment. Now she must track the power-hungry convict across England before he can take his revenge. With her life and loved ones hanging in the balance, Ceony must face a criminal who wields the one magic that she does not, and it may prove more powerful than all her skills combined.

Review:

Another great cover, sadly I was disappointed with this conclusion. Emboldened by her success in the previous books at avoiding being killed my stronger more experienced magicians, when her enemy escapes, she searches for him. Since everyone, except for herself, is incompetent she finds him not once but twice.

I realized while writing this review that I don’t believe Ceony experienced any kind of character growth. My complaint with each book has been that she runs into things without thinking, and yet is supposed to be incredibly smart. In this book not only is she studying her own magic but several others and she is of course excelling, and yet she can’t stop and think for one instant that maybe the escaped homicidal maniac shouldn’t be pursued by someone that is inexperienced.

The first two books can be explained with the fact that they happened months apart, but this one is almost two years later. She’s had time to think and reflect and realize that she’s the reason that her friend died. Nothing. She’s clearly one of those books smart street, stupid people.

The conclusion ended the series on a low note in my opinion. Ceony throughout this book has finally found out that several people think that she’s a loose woman for her situation and nothing is done about that. She doesn’t come to some realization that they’re all idiots or that maybe she shouldn’t have been so obvious with her affections. It’s never brought up by Emory and whenever she’s in his presence all she really thinks about is how amazing he is.

She’s a love sick school girl and doesn’t appear to do any growing. The very ending, the resolution to the romance, left me wanting. Holmberg could have done an epilogue that went into more of the future Ceony had seen in the first book but instead it ended abruptly. This isn’t an eighties action movie, I want more than just a hanging question and end scene credits.

I know I’ve mentioned a lot of negatives and I honestly didn’t hate the book, I just thought it could have been better. The world created was very interesting and with the revelation in this series it would be very easy to go into more in the world with completely different characters. Holmberg could also write in a different time period, all that world creation shouldn’t go to waste and I would definitely read more, maybe not with these people though.

3/5