Magic Bitter, Magic Sweet
Maire is a baker with an extraordinary gift: she can infuse her treats with emotions and abilities, which are then passed on to those who eat them. She doesn’t know why she can do this and remembers nothing of who she is or where she came from.
When marauders raid her town, Maire is captured and sold to the eccentric Allemas, who enslaves her and demands that she produce sinister confections, including a witch’s gingerbread cottage, a living cookie boy, and size-altering cakes.
During her captivity, Maire is visited by Fyel, a ghostly being who is reluctant to reveal his connection to her. The more often they meet, the more her memories return, and she begins to piece together who and what she really is — as well as past mistakes that yield cosmic consequences.
From the author of The Paper Magician series comes a haunting and otherworldly tale of folly and consequence, forgiveness and redemption.
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Charlie N. Holmberg
Charlie N. Holmberg has a knack for finding magic in the margins—the kind of wonder tucked inside ordinary things, like folded paper, whispered spells, or the quiet ache of a lonely heart. Best known for The Paper Magician series, she writes fantasy that doesn’t shout but hums—spellbinding stories where imaginative worlds meet deeply human characters, and the line between enchantment and reality is deliciously thin.
Raised in Salt Lake City and shaped by the worlds of anime and Star Trek, Holmberg’s early love for storytelling bloomed in fan fiction before evolving into fully realized novels. Her writing often carries that same sense of earnest imagination—worlds that are clever and surprising without ever losing their emotional grounding. Whether it’s the steampunk whimsy of The Plastic Magician, the eerie elegance of The Fifth Doll, or the slow-burning celestial magic of Star Mother, her books unfold with the quiet confidence of an author who trusts her readers to follow her into the strange and the beautiful.
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