A Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking - Review
Link to the author's (U. Vernon) personal website
Genre: Fantasy
Publication Type: Book
Tags:
- Average Age of Main Characters (14)
- Length (3 / 10)
Link to Goodreads
Blurb: Fourteen-year-old Mona isn’t like the wizards charged with defending the city. She can’t control lightning or speak to water. Her familiar is a sourdough starter and her magic only works on bread. She has a comfortable life in her aunt’s bakery making gingerbread men dance.
But Mona’s life is turned upside down when she finds a dead body on the bakery floor. An assassin is stalking the streets of Mona’s city, preying on magic folk, and it appears that Mona is his next target. And in an embattled city suddenly bereft of wizards, the assassin may be the least of Mona’s worries…
Review: This is a solid self-contained novel that is a pretty simple read. The setting isn't unique, it's quite upfront about being a traditional 'teenage raises to occasion and saves the city' sort of deal, and you can admittedly see the plot twist and turns coming. The humor and some nice bits of originality with the writing of characters / magic system elevate the book though, and the setting was exactly what I was feeling at the time I read it. The book definitely lies in the less serious category, and it balances the line well of making a children's book that can be read by adults (think Harry Potter).