The Near Witch by V.E. Schwab
"If the moor wind ever sings, you mustn't listen, not with all of your ears. Use only the edges. Listen the way you'd look out the corners of your eyes. The wind is lonely, love, and always looking for company."
"No evidence. I am no longer surprised. The wind came in and stole Emily from her small bed. I can picture it. A quilt peeled back neatly, exposing the pale sheets, cool and empty. Maybe they found her charm on the bedside table, cast off like blankets on a warm night."
Lexi grew up with stories and lessons passed down to her from her father about the town of Near and the moor surrounding it. One night, a stranger is seen on the outskirts of town. Then, children begin to mysteriously disappear from the town, one by one, with no evidence left behind of who took them or where they might've gone. Lexi seeks out the stranger for answers and discovers the return of one of the town's oldest stories: The Near Witch.
A shorter story compared to others I've read by Schwab, The Near Witch is a ghost story compared to the adventure theme of the Shades of Magic trilogy or the cat-and-mouse hunt-style of Vicious and Vengeful. The story is prefaced by a short blurb from Schwab describing how The Near Witch came to be. The short piece made me appreciate the story so much more, even though, at times, I was just frustrated with the characters' thinking and decision-making. "What the hell are you doing?" I felt myself thinking at times when I thought they clearly should've made another, better decision. Having read a number of V.E. Schwab's books, I was immediately thrown off by the tone of the book. From the start, something just felt different about it. It took me several pages to realize this was the first of her books I'd read that was written in first-person. Something about the change gave it a much more ... "ominous" or "haunting" style, which is perfect for the ghost story that it is.
This particular book also came with another short story, The Ash-Born Boy, which provides a backstory for the stranger that came into the town of Near. It's a nice inclusion to the re-release of this story.
The Paper Magician by Charlie N. Holmberg
"Of all the materials Mg. Aviosky could have chosen - glass, metal, plastic, even rubber - she had chosen paper. Mg. Aviosky obviously did not realize that the reason Folding had become a dying art was because the skills it enabled were so completely useless."
"Ceony paled at the sight of Lira's dripping hands, at the thought of just how Lira's magic worked, at what sort of horrid thing - like ripping the heart from a child - an Excisioner would have to do to make blood boil."
Ceony Twill arrives at the house of the Paper Magician Emery Thane disappointed that her school assigned her to the study of enchanting paper. What she finds instead is an eccentric and likable magician and an art with much more uses than just folding birds and frogs. When her mentor is attacked by an Excisioner, one that has studied the forbidden art of enchanting and manipulating human bodies, and his heart stolen, Ceony takes it upon herself to face down the thief and retrieve the stolen heart.
Yeah, I already read this one but I finally got around to ordering the other two books of the series from Amazon (47North being Amazon's publishing arm), and luckily I hadn't already gotten rid of the first book. Of course, my favorite part of the story still involves the different paper spells. A long time ago, I watched an anime called Read or Die about an agent that could manipulate paper. I thought the spells would be similar to the anime, but no, they are better than the ones I remember her using: Bringing to life paper animals; A giant paper airplane that one could actually ride upon and fly; A paper fan that creates strong gusts of wind; Creating illusions when reading written words; A fortune-teller game that actually predicts the future. The plot though moved a little slowly for me in the middle when Twill is trapped in Thane's heart by the Excisioner's magic, and she spends it learning about Thane's past and fears and hopes. I know, it jumps the romance forward especially in the next book, The Glass Magician but it still felt like we could've learned about Thane a little faster and gotten back to the Excisioner threat faster.
The Glass Magician by Charlie N. Holmberg
"'I've determined that I will teach you to cheat at cards for the day's first lesson,' Emery announced.
Ceony dropped her scissors. 'I knew you were cheating!'
'Astute, but not astute enough,' the paper magician replied, tapping his index finger against the side of his head. 'Unless you can tell me how I did it'"
"The Burst spell exploded
The explosion wasn't as strong as when Ceony had used the spell against Lira, since this one had been made with thin napkin paper, but it was large enough to send dishes flying and chunks of table scattering. Large enough to burn anyone who came too close, even an Excisioner like Grath."
After a harrowing adventure battling a rogue Excisioner and recovering her mentor's stolen heart, Ceony Twill continues her studies under Emery Thane. As her studies in paper magic continue, so does her new infatuation with the Paper Magician. Her troubles with Excisioners aren't over though, as shes sought out by two of the most wanted men in England to reverse the spell she placed on the eternally frozen Lira. Not one to put others in danger, the magician's apprentice sets out to confront the Excisioners and keep those she loves safe.
A battle between paper and flesh! Ok, but first. So this was the second book of the series. Twill continues to learn under Thane while trying to disguise her love for the magician after her adventure in his heart while trying to figure out if Thane feels the same way for her. I liked the pacing of this book a lot more than the first, and even found myself pausing at some of the suspenseful parts - a welcome surprise as there was a good chunk of the first book that I just wanted to get through. In this book we'll meet other magicians and learn about the other materials people are able to manipulate: Paper, Glass, Metal, Rubber, Plastic, and Fire. And, as I mentioned, the highlight of the story comes in seeing Magician Thane battle against a master Excisioner - utilizing paper magic to its fullest against a magician that can kill with simply a touch.
The Master Magician by Charlie N. Holmberg
"She stabbed a slice of kidney pie with her fork. In a way, the magic - the bond breaking - felt like cheating.
The man she had learned it from would probably agree, were he still alive."
"She struggled against her slick bonds, realizing after a few futile attempts that the rotten scent came from them. She studied them in the dim light, their sackcloth-like color, flatness, translucency. Almost like sausage casing.
... Intestines. And they couldn't be from a pig or cow. Only humans were man-made. Excisioners could do spells with only humans."
After nearly two years under Magician Emery Thane's tutelage, his apprentice Ceony Twill feels confident and ready to take the licensing exam to prove she meets the qualifications of a full magician. At the same time, the two have grown closer finally having confessed their feelings for each other in the previous book. Due to their relationship, however, Thane asks that Twill be tested by another paper magician - one that hates Thane immensely. Passing the exam on her first attempt gains even more importance when she discovers that because of other scandals, opposite sex apprenticeships will be halted and Twill be reassigned to another magician to complete her training. As if the exam wasn't enough to worry about, the infamous Excisioner escapes custody, and Twill knows he will be coming for her and the secret his partner left behind: the secret of how to break the bond to a material and rebond to another.
Will Twill be able to hunt down the escaped Excisioner, and find time to impress her substitute mentor to pass her final exam to stay with the man she loves? Though the first book felt more like a movie on the Hallmark Channel, these last two have felt more like the fantasy stories I'm used to reading. This story still carried the same amount of suspense that the previous one did, knowing just what the Excisioner was capable of and what Twill was not. Like in the previous book, the highlight of the story is the fight with the Excisioner, but this time it's Ceony Twill holding the spotlight having figured out not only how to break and rebond to different materials, but also having learned how to utilize difficult elements of each material. I've played a lot of Devil May Cry and that was kind of what I was hoping the fighting would be like, switching quickly between different weapons. Twill, however worked slower in switching because of the emphasSportsis on tactics rather than looking stylish, which is the point of the video game.
Upon Further Review: The Greatest What-Ifs in Sports History by Mike Pesca
"What-if is a fundamental part of sports. Without what-if there'd be no draft, no spring training, no trades, no free agent acquisitions. Every roster rebuild in pro sports has been a multi-million-dollar exercise in what-if."
Sports are full of "what-ifs": what if someone hadn't gotten hurt? what if the coach called a run instead of a pass? what if an athlete from the past had played today or vice-versa? In this book, sportswriters, podcasters, and even fanatics tackle some of the best "what-if" questions in sports; and not just ones that might affect the outcome of a single game or season, but ones that have consequences that reach even the world outside the game. Each writer provides a thought-out discussion on the events in question, and how the world might look in an alternate reality. Some of the more memorable "what-ifs" include:
1. What if the United States had boycotted Hitler's Olympics?
2. What if football was invented today?
3. What if Major League Baseball had tested for steroid earlier?
to even more obscure ones like:
4. What if Bobby Ficher got proper psychiatric help?
5. What if horseracing was still popular?
So, confession: This book got jumped to the front of my reading list because I started watching Marvel's "What If" series on Disney+. It was also to give a break from genre fiction after finishing "The Paper Magician" series, but mostly because of the show. The book provides an interesting blend of writers: form those that provide a very detailed breakdown of how the world would be different thanks to just one decision, to those who set their narrative within the new reality created and give a first-person perspective of the new world. Even the introduction gives an intriguing "what-if": If the United States got it's slaves from East Africa instead of West Africa, how would modern sports change? Would we be watching marathon-running instead of football?
