A Wizard's Guide To Defensive Baking

Product Information

One morning, Mona finds a dead body in the bakery and from that point on, her life is completely turned upside down. die and those adults who should be in charge are fallible, this is still ultimately an uplifting and empowering tale.

Anyone who owns a sourdough starter knows how uncanny it can be to hear this faceless living mass bubbling in a jar. Mona has a loving and respectful relationship with the aunt who taught her to bake, and later in the novel, a female ruler is portrayed as flawed but still competent.But that is just the start of her troubles because there is a killer in the city and this assassin seems to be targeting magicas - minor ones like Mona.

Mona is 14 and has a magical gift for baking, which she has to repurpose into self defence and then defence of the city in the face of danger. The story, in typical Kingfisher style, is packed with most creatively delicious (and deliciously creative) ideas. I can see the dedicated bakers nodding at this; sourdough starter is notoriously finicky, so if you have one that won’t suddenly die or become infested with flies and it makes great bread, then what’s a few rats? Mona may not be happy with having to use her skills in a war setting – in fact doing anything violent with food feels like the exact opposite of everything a baker stands for – but I loved the ways that Kingfisher found to weaponize baked goods.And I kind of applaud Kingfisher for trying to tell a story about someone who doesn't want to be a hero, and who doesn't get powered-up and stomp all over the story. The fact that people are sometimes forced into being a hero doesn’t take one bit away from how amazing they are when they succeed. Nobody said anything to me, and they didn’t exactly stare, but they knew I was there, and I knew that they knew, and they knew that I knew that they knew, all in a creepy, crackling tangle of mutual awareness. Story gets told, ideas get presented, world gets saved, and just keep the sourdough starter firmly in place or it'll get weird ideas. Before the end of the day she’s been hauled before a tribunal for murder and becomes the target of a campaign against magic-users.

Mona is a very reluctant hero, wanting “to make really good sourdough and muffins and not get messed up with assassins and politics” — and she would much rather not have to do anything heroic because really, that’s something required of adults. Disclaimer: I don’t bake (unless burning something to a crisp can be considered baking), and apparently neither does T.Bob the sourdough starter is hilarious and steals every scene (and that ranks right up there with things I never thought I'd say about a book, along with spiders are cool).