Sway through the crowd to an empty space

A Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking T. Kingfisher I need to start this off by saying this book was perfect to me. Well, almost perfect, but I’m giving it a five-star review because the good outweighed my little nitpicks, and it felt like it was written directly to appeal to me. However, before I start raving about the parts of this book that just made my heart sing, I want to flag that I have read other books by T. Kingfisher, and those were for adults and a little more creepy than this one or had adult themes. Yes, this book opens with a murder; it is a young adult novel. (No shade to YAfiction, just didn’t want anyone interested in that genre to go pick up one of the author's horror novels and get more than they were bargaining for.)

Plotwise, the story follows fourteen-year-old Mona, who resides in a city and works in a bakery operated by her aunt and uncle. But, being a fantasy novel, there's much more to Mona's life than meets the eye—she's a wizard, albeit with a unique specialization: her magic works on bread. In this world, wizards possess distinct powers, and Mona's abilities are particularly suited to baking, she uses her powers to do such things as making gingerbread men dance. However, the narrative takes a darker turn when Mona discovers a dead body in the bakery, setting off a chain of events that propel the story forward.

( Onward! )