Magic Butter Magic Sweet Magic Butter Magic Sweet is a book written by Amy Blossom. It is a captivating tale filled with enchanting elements and delectable treats. The story revolves around a young girl named Ella, who discovers a magical recipe book hidden in her grandmother's attic. As Ella delves into the pages of the recipe book, she is transported into a world where butter takes on extraordinary properties. With each recipe she tries, Ella unlocks a new ability, such as flying, invisibility, or even time travel. These magical powers add excitement and adventure to Ella's life, as she navigates through various challenges and obstacles.
These magical powers add excitement and adventure to Ella's life, as she navigates through various challenges and obstacles. Not only does Ella's magical butter allow her to perform extraordinary feats, but it also creates the most exquisite desserts. From fluffy pancakes to creamy chocolate mousse, the recipes in the book never fail to amaze Ella and those around her.
Book Review – Magic Bitter, Magic Sweet
FTC Disclosure: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher via Netgalley. All opinions are my own.
Goodreads Synopsis:
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.
My Review:
Charlie N. Holmberg’s Magic Bitter, Magic Sweet was a much darker story than I was expecting. I think maybe that pretty cover fooled me into thinking I was heading into a light, fluffy, and whimsical read. While I did find the read to be whimsical, instead of the light and fluffy, however, I found myself immersed in a tale full of weighty themes and relevant life lessons, the dominant one being that you have to take responsibility for choices that you make because actions have consequences.
Maire is a young woman who learns this lesson the hard way. When the story opens, Holmberg grabs the reader’s attention immediately as she begins to describe Maire. Maire is working as a baker and, curiously enough, has the ability to infuse her baked goods with qualities such as hope, strength, generosity, love – basically whatever qualities she chooses. Those qualities are then passed on to those who eat the baked goods. What makes Maire even more interesting is that she has lost her memory – she has no idea who she is, where she came from, and no memories at all prior to the moment that a woman named Arrice found her in the forest a few years earlier and brought her to her own home to live. Although Maire is somewhat curious about who she is and where she came from, overall she is content with the life she is living and so doesn’t dwell on her true identity too much. Right away I found Maire to be an endearing protagonist, both because of her magic, which she seems to use only to help people, and because the memory loss gives her a human and vulnerable quality. I found myself immediately in her corner, cheering her on, as the real action of the story began.
Holmberg then begins to deftly weave in a few plot twists, the first of which being Fyel. Maire is outside one day when she encounters Fyel, a translucent man all dressed in white, who also has wings of some sort. He tells Maire that he is not from this world, but that he knows who she is and that she must try to remember as well. Many of his remarks are cryptic and he refuses to tell her much more because he says she won’t believe his far-fetched tale and that if she denies the truth, she will be lost to his world forever. He says she must piece the story together herself so that she will believe it.
Maire then becomes obsessed with trying to figure out who she is, but soon after this encounter, we have another plot twist – marauders attack Maire’s village and she is sold into slavery. Strangely enough, her new master Allemas seems to already know who she is and even acts as though he has been searching for her, even though Maire is pretty sure they’ve never met.
The story takes a dark turn at this point because Allemas is a cruel and unpredictable master and Maire does not fare well working for him, especially once he realizes that Fyel has also found Maire. By this point, Maire is desperately trying to figure out who she is, what her connection to Allemas is, and especially what her connection to Fyel is. The second half of the book primarily follows Maire on her journey as she discovers her true identity, how she ended up where she is, and most importantly, as she realized that what happened to her was a direct consequence of choices she made in her other life. Maire’s journey is particularly fascinating in the sense that with each new memory she has about her past, her body undergoes a change as she slowly starts to transform back into what she was before she lost her memory and ended up here.
I did notice a few plot holes here and there as I was reading — things that happen that seem a little too coincidental or even the fact that Maire doesn’t seem to think it’s at all strange that she has this unusual magical baking ability, but I still thought overall this was a great read. While, like the magical baking itself, I’m not sure they really added much to the plot of Magic Bitter, Magic Sweet, I thought Holmberg’s whimsical touches, such as weaving various fairy tales such as Alice in Wonderland, Hansel and Gretel, and The Gingerbread Man into her story, made the story an immensely fun read. What I really liked though were the darker threads that ran through it. Offsetting those whimsical fairy tales as Maire discovers her true identity, is a dark tale that is reminiscent of both Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and the Book of Genesis in the Bible. I loved the added weight those elements gave to the overall story.
For me, the main weakness of the story was the ending. I felt like there was this huge build up to the reveal of Maire’s identity and then a rush to wrap things up, with years tacked on in an epilogue. I would have liked a little more explanation as to what specifically happened from Maire’s return home to what we see in the epilogue. That part just felt too abrupt for me. Other than that though, I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Magic Bitter, Magic Sweet is a book I would recommend to anyone who enjoys fantasy. I probably wouldn’t recommend it to children, because even though it has those fun shout outs to familiar fairy tales, I think the darker parts of the story, particularly some things that happen to Maire along the way, would make it too violent and frightening for younger readers.
Thanks so much to Netgalley, 47North, and to Charlie N. Holmberg for allowing me the opportunity to preview this book.
Rating: 3.5 stars
About Charlie N. Holmberg
Charlie Nicholes Holmberg was born in Salt Lake City, Utah to two parents who sacrificed a great deal to give their very lazy daughter a good education. As a result, Charlie learned to hate uniforms, memorized all English prepositions in alphabetical order, and mastered the art of Reed-Kellogg diagramming a sentence at age seven. She entered several writing contests in her elementary years and never placed.
Being a nerd, Charlie started writing fan-fiction as a teenager in between episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation. She became a full-fledged band geek with mediocre talent in high school, where she met her husband. While she strove to win his attention by baking him cookies and throwing ramen noodles at his house, he didn’t actually ask her out until six years later.
Charlie began taking writing seriously during her undergrad at Brigham Young University, where she majored in English and minored in editing. She finally won a few writing contests. She graduated with her BA in 2010 and got hitched three months later. Shortly afterwards, her darling husband dragged her to Moscow, Idaho, where he subsequently impregnated her.
In summer 2013, after collecting many rejection letters and making a quilt out of them, Charlie sold her ninth novel, The Paper Magician, and its sequel to 47North with the help of her wonderful agent, Marlene Stringer. She currently lives with her family in Utah. Someday she will own a dog.
(Did she mention her third book, The Master Magician, totally made the WSJ bestseller list? Because it totally made the WSJ bestseller list.)
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.
Each dish is infused with a touch of magic, making them irresistibly delicious. Throughout the story, Ella learns valuable lessons about the power of perseverance, kindness, and the importance of family. She discovers that the true magic lies not only in the enchanted butter but also in the connections she forms with others. As Ella shares her magical creations with friends and loved ones, she realizes that the joy and delight they bring far surpasses the effects of the enchantment. Magic Butter Magic Sweet is a delightful tale that blends fantasy, adventure, and culinary delights. It is a story that reminds us of the wonders that can be found in the simplest of ingredients and the magic that lies within our own hearts. Amy Blossom's enchanting storytelling will captivate readers of all ages and leave them craving a taste of the magic butter magic sweet..
Reviews for "From Novice to Magic Master: Level Up Your Baking Skills with Magic Butter Magic Sweet"
- Sarah - 2/5 - I had high hopes for "Magic bktter magic sweet" but I was left disappointed. While I appreciated the unique concept of the story, the execution fell flat for me. The writing style was overly descriptive and convoluted, making it hard for me to stay engaged with the plot. Additionally, I found the characters to be underdeveloped and lacked depth. Overall, I found this book to be a tedious and unenjoyable read.
- John - 1/5 - "Magic bktter magic sweet" was a complete waste of time for me. The story was incoherent and lacked any sort of substance. The writing was overly flowery and pretentious, making it hard for me to follow along. The characters were caricatures rather than fully fleshed out individuals, and their motivations were unclear. I struggled to even finish this book, and I would not recommend it to anyone.
- Emily - 2/5 - I wanted to like "Magic bktter magic sweet", but I found it to be confusing and disjointed. The story jumped around too much and was difficult to follow. The author tried to incorporate too many different elements into the plot, but it only made the narrative more convoluted. The characters were forgettable and lacked depth, making it hard for me to connect with them. Overall, I was left feeling unsatisfied and underwhelmed by this book.