A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking by T. Kingfisher
Genre: Fantasy, Young Adult
Pages: 306
Published By: Argyll Productions on 21st July, 2020
Format: Paperback
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Book Synopsis:
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…
Book Review
I’ve had this book sitting on my TBR for a while now and I’ve finally felt in the mood to get to it. I am so glad I did because I had such a fun time reading this. In my opinion, this cosy fantasy works well. It’s my first T. Kingfisher book I’ve ever dived into so I am excited to read more from her in the future.
The first thing I’d like to point out is that the FMC felt a little timid to begin with but she is still a fresh teenager of 14 which makes sense but I’m glad that her character grows and develops throughout alongside her magic. The side characters in this story are great and each have their role to play within the story. I will just point out that although the blurb says she has a sourdough starter as her familiar… I feel like the gingerbread man is more her familiar. However we do get to see the sourdough starters importance more in the second half of the book.
The pacing for the book was decent overall but I much preferred the second half of the book to the first. I feel like the story really progressed once we hit the halfway mark. The first half is definitely laying out the ground work for the storyline but the second half is where the action is at and I loved it!
One thing to note is that the writing style is clearly YA, which is good since that’s how it’s marketed. Due to this I do think though that some parts could possibly annoy an adult reader but for me I had no issues with the writing. I really enjoyed the FMC first person perspective.
The magic system in this book especially how it was woven into baking, I absolutely adored. I thought it was a clever and refreshing plot idea, unlike anything I had read before. It made a nice change and it definitely fit the Young Adult vibes.
The book is inventive, very funny and a totally entertaining read. If you’re a fan of cosy fantasy, want a magical fairy tale-feeling story or enjoy YA fantasy books then I would highly recommend giving this one ago. I feel like there are some great messages in here for younger readers. I can see how this could feel empowering, showing that they can do big and important things.
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