TL;DR Review: Fun, easy reading. Cozy fantasy that becomes wonderfully epic by the end. The perfect binge-reading 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…
Full Review:
Think about the least epic magical skill in existence, then make it the secret to defending a city against an enemy siege. Sounds like a lot to ask? That’s exactly what Mona, our “Wizard of the Bakery” thinks!
Mona has one magical talent: she can “charm” baked goods. She can turn stale bread soft, stop buns from burning, turn biscuits extra flaky, and maybe if you ask really nicely, can bring one of her gingerbread men alive to dance on the counter of her aunt’s bakery. In a world of great and powerful wizards, she is happy to live her small, cozy life turning her magic into confections and goodies to make her fellow townsfolk happy.
Unfortunately, life tends to be a lot messier than that—and by mess, I mean a dead body turning up in the bakery.
Mona finds herself drawn into a series of murders, facing off against magical assassins, outwitting cruel and cunning politicians, and, eventually, fighting off a full-scale siege using only her seemingly unimportant magical ability, her limited courage, and the friendship of street rat (and surprisingly crafty thief) Spindle.
From the first page, I was enchanted. The “voice” of this book is so strong; we’re immediately drawn into Mona’s head and world, and we quickly come to understand who she is by the way she talks and thinks. And we’re kept nice and close to her thoughts and feelings as she’s dragged along on this terrifying, life-changing, city-saving adventure. We’re right along with her for the ride, which goes from cozy to epic in just a few chapters.
The story has YA characters and a younger feel, but I still found it a whole lot of fun to read and very adult-friendly, too. The surface-level themes of friendship and courage are easy to follow along, but there’s a surprisingly dark theme of prejudice and racism woven deftly throughout.
There’s never a dull moment in this book—even when Mona is just hiding out and afraid for her life, she still finds a way to be interesting, building her own dough “circus”, experimenting with magic bread birds, and learning more about her magic.
This is the sort of adventure that’s easy to get swept up into, and one I found myself binge-reading in a single day. Easy reading, lovely characters, a great tone of voice, and a whole lot of fun. Strongly recommend for anyone who loves a good cozy fantasy.
Leave a Reply