Written by contributor Regina Peters
A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking began in 2007, but not published until 2020. The author, T. Kingfisher (a pseudonym for horror writer Ursula Vernon), writes in her acknowledgements section that the manuscript was rejected several times by publishers who found it too dark or too strange, until she eventually decided to self-publish. Like the titular wizard, she uses the most unexpected ingredients, mixing them into something delicious. But watch out, the bitter aftertaste may surprise you.
Mona, the 14-year-old heroine, is a baker who uses magic to make her bread rise and entertain customers with dancing gingerbread men. Since this is a world where magic is common, her talent is seen as minor, but she doesn’t mind, since all she wants is to bake well. When she finds a dead body in her bakery and the constables charge her with murder, however, she learns firsthand that having only a “minor” talent is no protection against discrimination. Someone powerful in this city has it out for wizards, and her only options are to be crushed or fight back.
If this sounds like the plot of every other YA fantasy novel, it isn’t. Firstly, the way Mona uses her supposedly small gift to protect herself and her allies is both unique and unnerving; the author’s experience writing horror stories really shows through, as does her attention to detail. Anyone who owns a sourdough starter knows how uncanny it can be to hear this faceless living mass bubbling in a jar. Now imagine if it could ooze around on its own, and eat other things the way it eats flour and water, like your enemy’s face, for example. This creature exists in the novel as Mona’s familiar. She calls it Bob.
Secondly, unlike some YA protagonists, Mona reacts to danger like a real teenager, not a superhero. She runs and hides when attacked, has no snappy comebacks to offer, and even calls out the adults around her on the unfairness of leaving it up to her to save the day. Her uncle, a war veteran, tells her that the government only praises certain people as heroes to hide its own failure to protect them. Many YA fantasy novels avoid this issue, either by making the underage hero a prophesied saviour like Harry Potter, or portraying society as so corrupt that protecting citizens is impossible to begin with, like Panem in the Hunger Games series. The fact that Mona develops her “defensive baking” skills out of grim necessity, and fights for the city even after it lets her down, not only makes her a protagonist to root for, but lends a surprising realism—dancing gingerbread and all.
Thirdly, as a female protagonist, Mona avoids several other clichés besides that of the badass action hero. There is no romance, for one thing, since her closest male ally is a boy from the streets who becomes a surrogate younger brother. She has a healthy attitude toward her own body, meaning she can appreciate her strong arms and enjoy her pastries without worrying about how she looks. There are no instances of putting other women down to make the heroine look better. Mona has a loving and respectful relationship with the aunt who taught her to bake, and later in the novel, a female ruler is portrayed as flawed but still competent.
In the acknowledgements section, the author jokes that the novel took twelve years to become relevant, citing the pandemic-inspired trend for homemade bread and the political tensions of 2020. At its heart, however, this is a story about believing in yourself, making the best of your abilities and using them to help your community as well as yourself, and those messages are timeless.
A Wizard’s Guide To Defensive Baking is available from Amazon, Book Depository, and other good book retailers, like your local bookstore.
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Synopsis | Goodreads
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…
