A Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking

With an immortal carnivorous sourdough starter named Bob (who may or may not count as a familiar).

In case that's not enough to convince you:

Teenage assistant baker Mona's only magic talent is with bread. She can make it staler or fresher, keep it from burning, make gingerbread men dance, and occasionally something more dramatic like Bob. (Bob was an accident, but he's quite handy around the bakery.) She wasn't prepared to be suspect number one in a rash of wizard murders, live on the run, or to protect the city from a threat as its only remaining mage.

Fun characters, fun concepts, and a quest that runs through the city's worst slums to the palace. Mona has to navigate both from her comfortable shopkeeper's life, learning what happens when the system she relied on to protect her is turned against her. And how the system can be manipulated against itself. She makes mistakes in the process -- sometimes annoying mistakes, but the kind that makes sense for a teenager to make.

Also: Lots of creative uses of very specific magic abilities. One mage can only work with water...but they can use it to make two surfaces vibrate in sync to transmit sound. Another can only work with air...but is able to use smell and gases to strong effect. Another can only reanimate dead horses.

My 12-year-old son loved it, so of course I had to read it too. Definitely recommended!

Cross-posted from my website.

This is probably closer to a 3.5 for me. I did mostly enjoy it but there were two things that bothered me: 1) the Duchess is essentially the monarch of the land and when the kids tell her there's a possible plot to overthrow her, she bursts out crying; 2) During the middle of a battle, the aunt - who the author has gone to great pains to make clear that this is a hefty no-nonsense woman - stands around wringing her hands. Literally wringing her hands.

Why?

This was written by a woman and features a 14 year old girl as a protagonist. Why have the two most important women in this girl's life be USELESS in times of stress? From the author's note, I see that maybe this wasn't really intended to be a children's book, but as a woman I don't understand why you'd portray a powerful woman that way with respect to the Duchess. I'm not saying she can't have feelings, I just don't think that's a realistic - or frankly, helpful - response for someone who's the most powerful person in the land.

A 14 year old whose magic only works with baking. Her accidentally-created familiars, a bucket of sapient sourdough starter called Bob, and an animated gingerbread man. A city being undermined from within by totalitarian forces and under attack from the outside. And the army and other wizards unavailable...

T. Kingfisher is my favourite author discovery of this year, and since I do a lot of baking myself I couldn't wait to read this one. It's a YA book, no matter what her publishers think; yes, it starts with the discovery of a dead body, but have you ever read the original Brothers Grimm fairy tales? Kids love that dark stuff. It's in the same tone as "Minor Mage" (possibly in the same universe but it's hard to tell, they don't directly relate at all). Whether Kingfisher's characters are adult or teen, they always have a very down-to-earth and practical view of the situation that I greatly appreciate. They generally have heroism thrust upon them, rather than starting out or viewing themselves as the heroes of the story, and are just trying to get through things a step at a time. So as Mona, 14 year old baking wizard, finds herself caught up in political plots after finding the body of a murdered girl in her aunt's bakery, she becomes involved very much against her will and has to think up novel ways that baking magic might be used to protect her and her loved ones and maybe even the city itself.

I particularly enjoyed the sapient sourdough starter Bob, and since the whole world seems to have made a sourdough starter during this pandemic year, the book is particularly amusing. I never named mine but I think it may now become known as Bob also ... although hopefully it will remain a little less intelligent! Highly recommend this book for any fantasy lovers, baking lovers, and teen readers in your life. And hey, support your local bookstore and order a few copies from them for Christmas presents this year!

It is a well-known fact that if you want to make me rave about your book forever and forever the number one thing you can do is be clever.  Be imaginative.  Think of something that is a smart variation on something I've seen a million times and I will love you forever.  That is the magic of this book.  We've all seen the story of the young person who has to save everyone despite only have a little bit of talent.  The genius of this story is to make that little bit of talent the ability to use magic to make baked goods and use that to power a hero's tale.  Mona is fourteen and works in her Aunt Tabitha's bakery.  She uses her magic to make the dough behave and sometimes to make gingerbread men dance for customers.  Once she accidentally put too much magic into saving a sourdough starter and now there is a carnivorous sourdough starter named Bob who lives in the basement.  But really her life is pretty quiet until small magic users like her start to get targeted by the government and a murderer at the same time.  Suddenly she is in hiding with only a street kid named Spindle who is able to help her. This book was both amazing funny and introspective.  Should magic users have to register with the government?  

"It seemed like once you agreed that the government could put you on a list because of something you were born with, you were asking for trouble."
How many layers of authority have failed if it is up to a fourteen year old to save the city from an invading army?  

What are you capable of with even just a little bit of talent if you start thinking big?

There are even discussions about post-military service PTSD and the concept of heroism in here.  I have to admit Knackering Molly whose magic is based around horses had me in tears but I cry over anything horse related.  

But overall the book is fun.  

"The enemy warrior clearly had no idea what to make of the berserk woman charging at him, with her housedress flapping madly over her jingling armor. He gaped at her. Aunt Tabitha whacked him with the hammer so hard that his helmet got knocked halfway around his head, and he fell down. She kicked him a few times. Aunt Tabitha had very definite opinions about people who tried to invade her city."
 

"The gingerbread man began to dance a very respectable hornpipe. Don’t ask me where the cookies get the dances they do—this batch had been doing hornpipes. The last batch did waltzes, and the one before that had performed a decidedly lewd little number that had even made Aunt Tabitha blush. A little too much spice in those, I think. We had to add a lot of vanilla to settle them down."This review was originally posted on Based On A True Story