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.

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