A Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking by T. Kingfisher

A Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking is the tale of Mona, a fourteen-year-old girl who has a magical way with dough and baked goods. She finds a dead body in her aunt's bakery, is accused of the murder, and then proceeds to become an integral part of defending her government against an attempted coup.  But Mona never asked to be a hero.

T. Kingfisher is the pen name for Ursula Vernon, who writes children's books and comics. When she writes something that's a little unusual or a little dark or just doesn't fit the idea of what her Vernon persona would write, she publishes under the Kingfisher name. 

From the author's note at the end: Ultimately the problem was that it [A Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking] was a fairly dark children's book and I, under the name Ursula Vernon, was a write of whimsical upbeat books. If a publisher bought it, they would need me to write about four other books first before they could slip it into the line-up, or else my brand would be in limbo.

I understand that this book has a bit of an edge to it, but I honestly would put this in my pile of sci-fi/fantasy books that make you feel good, like Murderbot and The Wayfarers series. Sure, there are scenes of violence and war, but the main takeaway is that everyone has a gift and everyone's gift is useful.  

Plus, there is a homicidal sourdough starter, killer gingerbread men, and an animate horse corpse.  I mean, what else could you possibly ask for?  I found this book to be extremely entertaining, the worldbuilding was top-notch, and there was plenty of humor. Huge thumbs up from me.  5/5 stars

Lines of note:

Problem was that, like yeast, the thoughts were growing. Pretty soon they'd overflow the edges of my skull, and I wouldn't be able to ignore them any longer. (page 67)

This is exactly how I feel 90% of the time.

Molly understood, though. When you spend most of your time with a dead horse, you learn to respect other people's weird pets. (page 82)

Don't question me about my pets' eccentricities. They're both weird little creatures.

It seemed like once you agreed that the government could put you on a list because of something you were born with, you were asking for trouble. (page 128)

This cuts too close to home.

If you have ever prepared for a siege in two days, than you know what the next few days were like. If you haven't, then you probably don't. (page 212)

I like this way to handwave doing exposition.  The author clearly wanted to show time had passed, but didn't want to go into excruciating detail about preparations. This was done with humor and I liked it. 

It is nearly impossible to be sad when eating a blueberry muffin. I'm pretty sure that's a scientific fact. (page 238)

True fact.