I don’t have much to say about this book. It was fine. I liked it enough to finish reading it but probably not enough to bother with the sequels, especially since it doesn’t end on a cliffhanger. The pacing is too slow and there isn’t enough character development to justify that pace. Spoilers ahead.
We follow Ceony, a new graduate of a magic school. Magicians bond to specific man-made elements and she wanted metal, but due to a lack of paper magicians, that’s what she has been assigned to. We’re never really told why she didn’t get to pick her material and most other students did. She is assigned to apprentice under Magician Emery Thane, and a couple of weeks after she starts, he is attacked and his heart is stolen, and she sets out on a rescue mission, wholly unprepared.
After tracking down the attacker, Ceony is trapped in Thane’s heart and spends about half the novel learning about Thane by viewing his memories in the different chambers of his heart. Why are the memories in his heart and not his brain where memories are actually stored? Magic, I guess. Why doesn’t she damage his heart as she goes tromping around in there? Same answer, I assume.
It’s indicated at the end of the novel that a romance will develop between Ceony and Thane, and I don’t love that because she’s 19 and he is 30. I could actually get past that, and the teacher-student dynamic (as long as it’s handled well), and the added complexity of Thane having anonymously paid for Ceony to attend the magic school, but frankly I just don’t care enough to see what happens.
I liked the idea of the magic system and starting to learn what a paper magician can do, and I liked the characters well enough. But I wasn’t super invested in them and didn’t find the book engaging enough to continue on.
