Magic Bitter, Magic Sweet

By: Charlie N. Holmberg

Narrated by: Kate Rudd

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.

©2016 Charlie N. Holmberg (P)2016 Brilliance Audio, all rights reserved.

Interesting but not my favorite

I listened to the another of the author's books (the 5th doll) and I was absolutely obsessed. I fell in love with the style of fantasy that Holmberg presented. When I listened to Magic Bitter, Magic sweet, I felt a bit underwhelmed at the end. I think that the author has created an interesting universe and mythology. However, I feel as though I came in to the middle of something. There's so many missed opportunities. Ideally, this could be part of a series. I would recommend listening to this before the 5th doll as to work up to it. Going from that to this left me disappointed. However I will still continue to buy Holmberg's work

Kate Rudd was very emotional. She bought a lot of passion and variety to the story.

captivating

I loved it! Great story line, keeps you guessing. keeps you wanting more. :) great read

Beautifully written fantasy story.

Maire struggles awake to discover she is on the side of a dusty road remembering nothing about herself or why she was there. She is helped by a woman that takes her back to her village where she ends up setting up shop as a baker. She discovers that she can infuse her bakery products with emotions and abilities that are then given to the person that eats them. Life goes on until the village is invaded and she is sold. Her buyer uses her to sell special bakery goods to people you may recognize from different stories.

I really enjoyed the weaving of this story. No doubt there is deeper meaning within the pages, but I just liked the story for how well the author used adjectives and feeling to put together the loss of memory along with finding out who you are even if you don't expect or may even like where you end up.

sensitive and poignant

a lovely and gripping mystery with a bittersweet ending of love, loss and transformational learning.
charming and careful painted characters, really hard to turn off

kate rudd treats these people with her delicate and careful nuanced performances.
charmed, read this one!

excellent read!

I usually don't like these types of stories bit this was well written and narrated