Mona lives in Riverbraid, a city-state where folks with magick live mostly peacefully with their non-magic neighbors. (Other city-states are not so kind, you understand. Some require magickers to register with the government, or lived confined to a ghetto, or serve in the military.) Mona is pretty satisfied with this as her magic is small and, in her opinion, not terribly useful. She’s a bread wizard, useful for saving a loaf from burning, but limited in application otherwise.
Then magickers with small gifts like Mona’s begin disappearing from Riverbraid, and Mona finds herself having to get real creative with all her gifts, magic and otherwise…
After months of Amazon putting this in my recommends, I finally took a chance on this and it was an absolute delight. I would not object if Kingfisher (Ursula Vernon) opted to make a series out of it because I want everything about these characters she wants to share. I want to more of Aunt Tabitha and Uncle Albert. More of feral urchin Spindle. More Bob, the sentient sourdough starter… (Actually, Bob put me in mind of Horace the cheese from the Tiffany Aching books, and I think Tiffany and Mona would get along like a house on fire.) More stories of this world where magic is less important than people.
Though it’s easy to call the book Young Adult because the protagonist is a teenage girl, it didn’t feel Young Adult-y to me. It just felt like a good story, and that’s about as much as I can articulate.
