Welcome to Litsy!

Mona was a likable character - it's easy to root for a character who has to suddenly act heroic without feeling herself like a hero. I really loved secondary characters, there were so many lovely ones!

This was hilarious, even though for some reason the last part wasn't as intriguing as the beginning. Somehow it slightly dragged and didn't offer that much.

This was really fun. I found someone who described T.Kingfisher as “Cosy Horror” and I think that sums it up quite well.

Mona is a wizard, but working with bread. She works in her aunts bakery until she finds a dead body in the kitchen, forcing her into politics and heroism. It was cute, I liked the smart gingerbread man, and the angry sourdough starter.
But it was also sad, involved war, and was a scathing take on what a hero is.

Finished listening to this over the weekend. A nice story of a magicker girl accidently stumbling over a conspiracy and ending up fighting for her town with the help of tower-size gingerbread men and a vicious sourdough starter. 😂😂😂 Definitely entertaining.

@Gissy so many lovely things! What a thoughtful, generous package! Ted is super excited about his light-up ball (he and Soph are working out how to share it!) And Soph is so excited for new books - she is a reader! The turrón looks really yummy! I love the journal and the books you chose! And the mushrooms are all so cool! I have a mushroom matching game that I had just gotten out the same day we got your package! Great timing!

Audiobook narrated by Patricia Santomasso

Because I haven't been able to bear to listen to the news since last spring, I've been listening to a lot of audiobooks (ie books I've already read) this was fun, and although I wondered a bit at some of the accents, the narration was enjoyable, and I was reminded just how good these stories are.

Enjoying this one and tempted to bake some cookies now. 🍪

#motivationalmonday

1. Work, interview, read, finish the puzzle I started this weekend
2. My building‘s courtyard & some of Connecticut Ave
3. Washington D.C. – warm with a chance of thunderstorms this afternoon

Much like the last book of her‘s that I read, it took a long time to get into. Unlike the last one, it never really hooked me. This one was just ok.

#12Booksof2023 Such a fun read, and an introduction to a great new author. Very happy that #BookSpin finally got me to read this.

It was cute and creative. I have to hand it to the author for creativity. 😁⭐️⭐️⭐️

I won‘t lie, this book was a roller coaster ride. It went places I really wasn‘t expecting, but not in a bad kind of way. I definitely enjoyed it and I am a little hungry now. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Loved this! An army of gingerbread men, a homicidal sourdough starter, so much fun! It's definitely my favourite Kingfisher.

The baker in this book just threw flour on a fire to put it out 😨 you‘re a baker, you should absolutely know better!

So good.

Absolutely loved this book!!! Mona and Spindle such great characters. I can‘t wait to read mor from this author. As someone who loves to bake I wish had Mona‘s powers 🍪🍞🥖

Love this passage calling out that children shouldn‘t be the hero‘s. That it‘s clearly a failure of grown-ups that children had to step up and do something.

Hilarious and fun! Normally I share details about what I‘m reading with family, but I kept this one quiet. It will make an excellent Christmas present for someone in my family. (Yes, I‘m that person 😅thinking about gifts already). We always make gingerbread cookies at our house at Christmas time so this will be perfect.

🎧 What did I just read LOL I love this author … 14 year old Mona has a familiar, it‘s a homicidal sourdough starter. You read that right. She‘s going to save the City with her army of 12‘ tall gingerbread gollums.

I enjoyed this book.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

You expect heroes to survive terrible things. If you give them a medal, then you don't ever have to ask why the terrible thing happened in the first place. Or try to fix it.

New. Favorite. Book. Oh my. I finished this in 2 sittings then went and ordered a copy for my daughter who is about to turn 14 (same age as the protagonist in the book). I adored Ursula Vernon‘s hamster princess books and was so glad to finally commit to this one (same author, different name). It‘s funny and exciting and just the right amount of scary. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

This was an absolutely delightful book. There was an extremely colourful cast of characters, utterly absurd situations, and lots and lots of baking. I found myself chuckling through a lot of it the book (Angry Bob literally made me snort out loud). I do wish it had been longer, I wasn‘t nearly ready for the story to end.

#BookReport
Pretty good reading week for me. Absolutely adored the tagged but the other two were pretty good as well.

#WeeklyForecast
My goal this week is to finish Smoky and make good progress into Daughter of the Forest. If that goes well I‘ll start in on my BookSpin pick.

It‘s a snuggle up with a reading buddy before it‘s time to leave for work kind of day. #CatsOfLitsy

I feel like this is diet of a pointed commentary on children's books in general.

Read my first #NewYearWhoDis book for 2022 and I loved it - funny and brilliant and poignant. Massive thanks to @majkia for this recommendation!

@monalyisha

Two days and a weekend off work is juuussstt enough for me to lose all motivation. Currently looking for said motivation in a pack of M&Ms. I dislike how the packaging shamed me into thinking this bag is too big for me, too. Gr
Remembering this weekend binge fondly, though. A dark YA fantasy that tackles how ridiculous it is that kids have to step up and be heroes sometimes. Also features a mutant sourdough starter. I loved it.

That was fun.

It's me!!! Truly! I had somehow not seen it's #middle-grade and I just wasn't up for mg right now.

#RightBookWrongTime

This is an ADORABLE book, but also super dark and with some serious meditation on what it means to be a hero and the cost that some people pay for power and for the games of power others play. Great writing, great story, really unique world. 5/5 stars. I want a sequel! Mona is a Wizard with bread and baking magic, but when someone is killing off all magic users, she might be all that stands in the way of her city‘s destruction.

"The dead girl‘s legs were splayed across the floor. She was wearing grimy boots with mismatched socks. That seemed very sad. I mean, it was sad that she was dead anyway—probably, unless she‘d been a horrible person—but dying with mismatched socks seemed especially sad somehow."

If you wear socks are you team Match or mismatch? I love mismatching my socks, I guess that makes me especially sad ?

I haven't had this much fun with a book since the last Terry Pratchett novel I read.

Mona is a wizard who works in a bakery. Her one skill is to get bread dough to do what she wants. But when the city comes under attack and almost all the other wizards are assassinated, Mona rises to the challenge.

With smart, slightly dark writing, witty characters, and a homicidal sourdough starter, this is a joy from start to finish.

I saw this in one of my emails from amazon. I love the title! Has anyone else seen this? I think I might take the plunge. 🤔☺️🍞
#ebook #fantasy #amazon #ReadingForEscape

6 books for July! They were all very excellent 🥳

Book 72

I impulse bought this book last week 100% because the title made me chuckle and the Kindle version was $5. I had zero expectations that it would be any good.

Guys, gals, and anyone in between. This is genuinely the most delightful book I've read in years. It's a "just one more chapter" book. Every time I turned a page I was a bit more sad because that meant I was closer to the end, and I didn't want it to stop.

I‘ve always loved gingerbread - so it wasn‘t a hard sell that I needed to read a book about a girl baker who could make gingerbread men dance... that it started with the discovery of a dead body on the bakery floor... and deals in themes of heroism, greed, misuse of power, failure to act... ahh - it‘s just *chefs kiss* all rather great!

You haven‘t lived until you‘ve seen a cookie look smug.

Aunt Tabitha whipped a frying pan around and connected with a cookie that had a whisk in each hand and a homicidal expression on its icing face.

If you‘ve never tried to make conversation with a monarch, over the hog-tied body of an evil wizard, with a dead man in the next room, it is not easy. Talking about the weather didn‘t seem appropriate, and “so, do you think this will work, or are we all going to die?” didn‘t strike me as very good either.

This is another brilliant book by Ursula Vernon in her guise as T. Kingfisher. It‘s basically a MG book, but is quite dark. (It‘s also suitable for adults though!) It features Mona, a 14 year-old baker‘s apprentice and minor wizard, who gets pulled into a difficult situation after she finds a body in the bakery one morning. Unlike most books about adventures though, there is more of a sense of how it feels to be dragged into saving the day.

Oh! Astonishingly topical, for all it wasn't intended to be, and Knackering Molly, *my heart.*

Perhaps not quite as dark as Minor Mage, but heavy all the same.

Pick.

YES! New Kingfisher! #releasedayyay

(From the author's Afterward.)