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Charlie N. Holmberg

The Fifth Doll Kindle Edition

by Charlie N. Holmberg (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

1,101 ratings

Editors' pick Best Science Fiction & Fantasy

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The Wall Street Journal bestselling author of The Paper Magician Series transports readers to a darkly whimsical world where strange magic threatens a quiet village.

Matrona lives in an isolated village, where her life is centered on pleasing her parents. She’s diligent in her chores and has agreed to marry a man of their choosing. But a visit to Slava, the local tradesman, threatens to upend her entire life.

Entering his empty house, Matrona discovers a strange collection of painted nesting dolls—one for every villager. Fascinated, she can’t resist the urge to open the doll with her father’s face. But when her father begins acting strangely, she realizes Slava’s dolls are much more than they seem.

When he learns what she’s done, Slava seizes the opportunity to give Matrona stewardship over the dolls—whether she wants it or not. Forced to open one of her own dolls every three days, she falls deeper into the grim power of Slava’s creations. But nothing can prepare her for the profound secret hiding inside the fifth doll.

Print length

275 pages
Language

English
Publisher

47North
Publication date

July 25, 2017
File size

963 KB
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Editorial Reviews

Review

“...Quite clever, and the character work is endearing.” —RT Book Reviews

“Entertaining.” —Publishers Weekly

“Holmberg weaves a skillful story with an elegant touch for character and detail, one sure to please lovers of modern fantasy.” —AuthorLink

About the Author

Born in Salt Lake City, Charlie N. Holmberg is the author of Followed by Frost; Magic Bitter, Magic Sweet; and The Paper Magician trilogy, which includes The Paper Magician, The Glass Magician, and The Master Magician. A RITA Award finalist, she majored in English and minored in editing at Brigham Young University. Raised a Trekkie alongside three sisters who also have boy names, Charlie plays the piano and ukulele, owns too many pairs of glasses, and hopes to one day adopt a dog. For more on the author and her work, visit www.charlienholmberg.com.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B01NAFXFKI
Publisher ‏ : ‎ 47North (July 25, 2017)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ July 25, 2017
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 963 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Print length ‏ : ‎ 275 pages
Lending ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled

Best Sellers Rank: #44,828 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #395 in Historical Fantasy (Kindle Store)
- #609 in Historical Fantasy (Books)
- #2,017 in Romantic Fantasy (Books)

Customer Reviews:
1,101 ratings

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Charlie N. Holmberg

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Charlie N. Holmberg is the author of the Wall Street Journal bestselling Paper Magician series and the Amazon Charts bestselling Spellbreaker series. She is also the author of the Star Mother series and the Numina series, as well as five stand-alone novels, including Followed by Frost, a 2016 RITA Award finalist for Young Adult Romance; The Fifth Doll, winner of the 2017 Whitney Award for Speculative Fiction; and The Will and the Wilds, winner of the 2020 Whitney Award for Speculative Fiction, as well as Novel of the Year for Adult Fiction. Born in Salt Lake City, Charlie was raised a Trekkie alongside three sisters who also have boy names. She is a proud BYU alumna, plays the ukulele, and owns too many pairs of glasses. She currently lives with her family in Utah. Visit her at www.charlienholmberg.com.

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5 star		48%
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1 star		1%

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Kindle Customer

Lovely story, pity she messed up with some Russian stuff.

Reviewed in the United States on November 22, 2017

Verified Purchase

I had a hard time rating this book. On one hand I enjoy Charlie N. Holmberg writing, and this one was as pleasant a read as her other works. I loved the imaginative and unique world-building she created. I quite appreciated that Holmberg mythology and magic had nothing to do with Russian folklore. The story was 100% her own and independent, and yet had perfect sense to be tied to the old Russia setting. I also liked main character, as main characters go Matrona was quite unique too. I relay loved that Holmberg was bold enough to put quite, uncomplicated, unassuming character on a spot. I believe that every choice is a choice, and people with simple, down-to-earth goal has right to accomplish those goal as any book “hero”.
The romance was not very exciting, but again I have to compliment author boldness to choose to write about romance between older woman and younger man. There many stories featuring lovers with age difference, but it always men who are older. The other way has always been sort of taboo.
What I have problems with are many mistakes with the Russian motives. Half of the time things seem well enough researched, and then comes the mess with the names, and the way people call each other. I kept telling myself it doesn’t matter, but it did. Eventually I managed to switch names to more proper ones in my mind, but it lessened my enjoyment from the story. The food was hilarious. It seems Holmberg thinks kvas is alcoholic beverage, while kvas is something you drink when thirsty, give to kids and make cold soups. I think if you found such a complex foods as “holodets” - you should check what it is and how it is made. I practically had tears from laughing when Matrona took off holodets from the fire. (Holodets is a cold dish, which is basically crumbled meat in meaty jelly).

82 people found this helpful

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The Fifth Doll

Reviewed in the United States on July 27, 2017

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3.5

Matrona has always tried to be the dutiful daughter her parents expect her to be. She stays on top of her chores and never complains. She’s even gone so far as to agree to marry the man of her family’s choosing, despite having a long-harbored secret attraction to a younger man in her village. Pretty much she’s living the status quo. There’s nothing really to shake up the comfortable existence that she and everyone else in the village have carved out for themselves.

That is, until one day, on her way home, Matrona decides to pay a visit to Slava, the local tradesman. Upon entering his empty house, Matrona discovers a room filled with nesting dolls. Dozens of hand-carved dolls that strike an eerie resemblance to the people of the village. When she finds the doll that resembles her father, Matrona’s curiosity is too much to keep her from messing with it. The next day, when her father begins acting in a strange and confused manner Matrona figures out that the dolls are more than just decorative; they actually hold some kind of magical force over the village.

As Matrona tries to unravel Slava’s connection to the dolls and what is going on in her village, she begins to piece together the puzzle of the past and visions of a place long forgotten.

I really loved the idea and, frankly, the imagery behind The Fifth Doll. I think you’d be hard pressed to find someone who wasn’t familiar with a nesting doll, and to have a whole village’s inhabitants tied so intricately to said dolls gives them this sinister quality that I never would have associated them with until now.

However, the way the mystery unfolds for Matrona, along with readers, was too unfocused for my tastes. The little breadcrumbs that we are given are nothing compared to the big info drop we get toward the end of the book. While the truth behind everything was really intriguing, I would have liked things spread out a little more throughout the story.

As for Matrona, I could really feel her frustrations at living a redundant kind of life, but at the same time her reluctance to rock the boat. This is elegantly played out in Matrona’s attraction to the younger Jaska. The romantic element is definitely a secondary element, but it’s used as a device to get Matrona out of her shell a little bit. I liked the somewhat unconventionality of the relationship, for the time period.

Overall, The Fifth Doll is full of interesting concepts and magics. If the information was paced out a little differently I’d probably be giving it a higher rating. As it stands, Charlie Holmberg has never disappointed when it comes to going off the beaten path in regards to the stories she tells and The Fifth Doll stands up really well next to its predecessors.

37 people found this helpful

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Laurie

This Year’s Favorite Fictional Book!

Reviewed in the United States on January 22, 2020

Verified Purchase

I have struggled to find the words to talk about this book. My monologue (nobody ever knows what to say in response to my speech, so it can’t be a conversation) usually goes like this:

“There is this book that I have been reading called The Fifth Doll. I don’t remember how I came across it. Maybe an Amazon recommendation. Whichever way brought me to it, it doesn’t matter because it was the summary that made me buy it. You can be reading the summary and everything makes sense until it doesn’t anymore, and you are left saying, ‘What the heck is this story about?’ I started reading it so that I could figure out a better way to summarize it, but now that I have finished it; I still don’t know how to talk about it, but I absolutely love this story because I cannot stop thinking about it!”

I think part of the difficulty of talking about this story is that if you truly summarize the major events of the story in chronological order, you have to move pieces of the story about, and by doing so you take away the mystery, tension, and suspense that the author has created. That building suspense and shrouded mystery drives the story forward and is one part that makes this story so loveable for me. You spoil one of the biggest revelations in the story if you tell the story in order of chronological events, and I, for one, do not want to rob the future reader of that feeling. I usually am a quiet reader, I don’t talk to the text, but at one of the revelations my jaw dropped, and I verbally said, “Oh, snap! That is what it is!?”

Another reason why I loved this book so much is the characters. Their names are so symbolic. Matrona means mother, Slava means glory, and Jaska means supplanter. I think Jaska is my favorite character, and without him, the story would have stopped a couple of times. He also was way more interesting than Feodor, Matrona’s fiancé. Feodor’s name means “gift of god” if that tells you anything about his personality. Matrona completely transforms over the course of the plot from a obedient-to-a-fault girl to a “mothers”-must-make hard decisions. While Slava fluctuates in my esteems as I try to decide if he is worthy of the glory of a man who made hard choices (hero) or a man who forced everybody to his will (villain). Ironically, the things that I dislike Slava for are the same things that I love Matrona.

This leads me to my next point. The text is difficult to talk about because readers must decide the answers to some ambiguous questions. Some examples of these questions are as follows:
When may one person act on the behalf of an entire group without consent?
When must one person wait for consent to act for the group?
Is complete transparency the best policy for the health of a group?
Or is hiding the truth if it is unpleasant better for the health of the group?
Can you be right for doing something that another person is wrong for doing?

In the end, you don’t know how everybody as a whole viewed Matrona’s actions, so readers (including me) may struggle to draw their conclusions to these questions. Feodor definitely allows the reader to know that it is possible for some to hate her decisions and actions, but Jaska so strongly values knowledge of truth over ignorance that there must be many more that feel the same way.

The story is complex much like the Fukuruma and Matryoshka dolls. There are several layers to this world that the author has imagined, and several characters that fight for the reader’s sympathy, admiration, and sometimes ire. Maybe you will have better luck than I with deciphering the complexities of this story when you reach the fifth doll. Perhaps the fifth doll will reveal a strong resolution in you that will answer the questions that I find so puzzling. Regardless of what you may find at the end of hatching dolls, I hope you enjoy the journey that this story will take you on.

6 people found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

Genevieve

The Fifth Doll - brilliant!

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 14, 2018

Verified Purchase

I am stunned by how good Charlie N Holmberg's novels are. Having read the Magician series, plus the novels that came after, I keep being surprised by how this lady's mind seems to work. The Fifth Doll takes place in a small village, apparently in Russia, and apparently in the early part of the 20th century. I say "apparently" because nothing is what it seems. Our heroine is a strange mixture of innocence and determination who, once she is threatened, behaves quite badly in order to find out the truth, but I like that. It's so boring to have perfect heroes and heroines mincing about beating ugly, hunch-backed baddies - which is probably why I always wanted the Sheriff of Nottingham to beat Robin Boring Hood ... anyway, back to Charlie N Holmberg. Fascinating mind! I really look forward to the next offering.

9 people found this helpful

WindingWay

Plodding

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 16, 2019

Verified Purchase

I probably bought this for the wrong reasons. I love russian dolls so the cover drew me in. That said, I also love magic and wizards and Russian folklore. So despite not being a fan of romance fiction, I thought I'd give this a chance. But man this book was slow, and just not very interestingly written. The writer said she wrote it very quickly and you can tell. The plot plods predictably. And the characters are not interesting enough to distract from that.

2 people found this helpful

LilyGreenEyes

Intriguing!

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 9, 2021

Verified Purchase

What an intriguing and unique concept for a story. I can honestly say I have never read anything like this, and I highly doubt I'll read anything like it again. Fantastic build up, my only niggle is that I wanted to know what happened at the end aha! I was so invested, I needed that closure but instead I shall be lost in thoughts of what comes next for Matrona and her village.

MBC

Sorry, this book failed to grab me. Started ...

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 18, 2017

Verified Purchase

Sorry, this book failed to grab me. Started off quite promising but for me just got a little bit silly. Finished it but was labouring through quite a large portion to the end. Thankfully I purchased it with the Daily Deal. I certainly do not think it is worth the full price.

2 people found this helpful

Sophie

Interesting concept but depressing

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 24, 2021

Verified Purchase

I didn't enjoy this. The tone is bleak throughout with no let up. There were some interesting concepts though: dolls representing people, revelations, alternative realities... It was like a crescendo towards the end of the book with more happening. There are some moral overtones to the book (about being your true self).

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Charlie N. Holmberg
1,639
Kindle Edition
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Charlie N. Holmberg
2,071
Kindle Edition
1 offer from $4.99
Charlie N. Holmberg
1,191
Kindle Edition
1 offer from $5.99
Charlie N. Holmberg
1,096
Kindle Edition
1 offer from $3.99
Charlie N. Holmberg
1,387
Kindle Edition
1 offer from $5.99
Charlie N. Holmberg
3,341
Kindle Edition
1 offer from $4.99

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