Title: The Paper Magician Author: Charlie N. Holmberg Genre: Fiction Publisher: 47North Release Date: July 8, 2014 Format: Kindle Source: Amazon Under the tutelage of magician Emery Thane, Ceony Twill discovers the wonders of paper magic, but when her teacher’s life is threatened, she must face the extraordinary dangers of forbidden magic to save him. The Paper Magician Series — Charlie N. Holmberg In The Paper Magician, set in an alternate turn of the 20th Century, Holmberg has created a unique magical world for the series.  Trained and licensed magicians work with only one particular medium among those available — all involving man-made materials. We first meet Ceony at the close of her education when she is to begin her apprenticeship.  Ceony wants to work in metal — to be a smelter. However, after completing magic school (all theory because students can’t perform magic until they bond with their material) she is instead assigned to apprentice with a folder — a paper magician because there are only eleven left in England. Ceony is not happy about it, but finds that she wants to please her teacher, Magician Thane. The set up is well done, and Holmberg has created a wonderful…

Title: An Untamed State Author: Roxane Gay Genre: Adventure stories Publisher: Corsair Release Date: January 8, 2015 Format: Kindle + Audio Pages: 384 Source: purchased Mirielle Duval Jameson’s fairy tale life is shattered when, during a visit to Haiti with her American husband and their child, she is kidnapped. Her father, a self-made millionaire, refuses to pay the ransom; and so Mirielle’s captors take their revenge – pushing her beyond what she previously thought possible to endure. In An Untamed State Roxanne Gay takes a hard, unsparing look at race, complicity, privilege, violence against women, and how one woman survives the horror of an abduction. Mireille is Haitian-American, a daughter not of poverty but of wealth and a sheltered life. She admits that she has a fairytale life. That is, until visiting Haiti from their home in Miami, when she is abducted by a group of men seeking a ransom from her father. At first, she wants to believe that such kidnappings are business transactions and that no serious harm will come to her. She desperately wants to believe her father will pay the ransom and she will be returned home. But, the tiny hope that she is wrong about her…