A Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking (T. Kingfisher)

A Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking
T. Kingfisher
Red Wombat Studio
Fiction, YA? Fantasy
**** (Good)

DESCRIPTION: Like many people in the land, fourteen-year-old Mona has magic, but isn't much of a wizard. She can't summon lightning bolts or move mountains or wake dead soldiers to fight on the battlefield. Her gifts are smaller and more practical, over baked goods and yeast; she can keep the biscuits from burning, make the gingerbread men dance, and one time accidentally put too much power into a batch of sourdough starter and thus created Bob, the yeast blob which now lives in a bucket in the cellar and has been known to devour rats (but which still makes the best sourdough in the city.) Fortunately, she lives in Riverbraid, where people aren't as fussed about wizards in their midst as some places. But when she discovers a dead body on the bakery floor one morning, Mona learns of a dark side to her city, a hidden assassin striking down Riverbraid's wizards - and a plot that could leave the city at the mercy of vicious mercenaries.

REVIEW: I wanted something quick and fun, and this fit the bill nicely. Mona's just a girl who wants to be left alone to bake sweet rolls and sourdough; she fights being drug into nefarious plots and potential coups, just as she fights the idea that her gifts could be much more than she's made of them. At times, the story reads light and almost simplistic, with Mona a little too stubborn and slow to pick up on obvious danger signals; if it weren't for her partner of convenience, the street thief Spindle, she'd be dead a few times over by the time she figures out how to stand on her own two feet. At other times, the tale offers some pointed commentary on the nature of heroism, the dangers of xenophobia (and how it can be harnessed and inflamed by those with the worst of intentions), and how politics and power have a way of manipulating truths and bending people until they break. The concept of bakery as wizardry makes for an enjoyable plot device, reasonably well explored, as Mona learns that it's not the strength of your power, but how creatively you can employ it, that makes the greatness of a wizard. It reads fairly fast and reaches a reasonably satisfying conclusion, with enough sacrifices and pain along the way to add substance and keep it from being just a puff pastry of a tale.

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