Overview
A Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking is a 2020 young adult fantasy novel by Ursula Vernon, under her pseudonym T. Kingfisher. It was first published by Argyll Productions.
Synopsis
When teenage bread wizard Mona discovers a corpse in her aunt's bakery, it triggers a chain of events. With the aid of animate gingerbread men, her familiar(a sourdough starter named Bob), and a few friends, they fight the Spring Green Man and Inquisitor Oberon, and lead the city in the fight against the Scriveners.
Reception and awards
James Nicoll called A Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking "an entertaining YA diversion that will encourage younger readers to consider just how easily they might be scapegoated by an ambitious politician," and emphasized that he would "enjoy" reading a sequel. Locus commended Vernon's "ability to craft engagingly quirky characters", and her portrayal of "a Pratchettian world where magic makes for a mostly amusing background, except when it doesn't." In 2020, Locus named A Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking among the best young adult novels of the year.