I received a digital advance reader’s copy (ARC) of A Fellowship of Bakers & Magic by J. Penner. Since this version is just a proof and not the final version, I won’t quote directly and will keep my comments general.

A Fellowship of Bakers & Magic by J. Penner follows Arleta Starstone, a struggling baker. She’s one of the only humans, and therefore one of the only people without magic, in her town. However, the two orcs who live next door—and have taken on parental duties after her mother and father died—sign her up to participate in the Baking Battle, a famous elf-run contest every year in the big city. To Arleta’s astonishment, she’s selected as a contestant, but she’s terrified of what will happen if anyone discovers she’s magicless. To make matters more complicated, an elf named Theo comes to escort her to the city, and she can’t help but notice how handsome and kind he is. Her burgeoning crush, combined with stress and doubt about the Baking Battle, make her worried that she will fail to get anything she desires, but she can’t help but want those things anyway.

I wanted a quick and easy read toward the end of this month, and this was an excellent choice. It’s a book that’s absolutely for fans of Legends & Lattes, Can’t Spell Treason Without Tea, and The Spellshop. Luckily, I liked all those books, so I had a good time.

Arleta is a sweet character, though at times her indecisiveness and low self-esteem are a little tiresome. I just really wanted her to make up her mind about the things she wanted, and to accept that she’s talented. But still, I appreciated her growth and increasing confidence throughout the story. I also liked Theo, who’s very sweet but not a very complex character. My favorite characters were probably Doli and Jez, the other baking contestants whom Arleta befriends. There’s lots of fun dialogue between the three of them, and I especially found Jez’s personality to be super entertaining. I love a character who tries to mask their emotions (especially their affection) by pretending to be grumpy—especially when no one around them buys it.

As for the baking side of things, if you’ve seen the Great British Bake Off, you know what to expect in this book. The challenges are identical to that show, though the timeline of the competition is accelerated to fit the book’s format and length. It’s a rather predictable part of the story, though it did make me crave scones and cookies, so that’s nice. I did wonder, however, why exactly Arleta was so concerned about being “outed” as a magicless human. There are some instances of bigotry and prejudice that the magical beings can have towards people like her, but I never really got a sense of what the consequences would be if the Baking Battle judges learned of Arleta’s heritage. I guess there were supposed to be stakes, but I didn’t really feel it.

I suppose this, as well as the way the romance progresses, are indicative of this being a debut. Being a debut author is not a bad thing, of course (every author was a debut author at one point), but this book does read as slightly amateur-ish at times. Speaking of the romance, the pacing of this was, to me, not good. So little time passes over the course of this book that it made no sense at all to me that Theo and Arleta felt as strongly as they professed to. Mere weeks pass from when they meet to the end of the book, the Baking Battle keeps them apart a lot of the time, and when they do interact, Arleta is incredibly indecisive about how to feel and act. Plus, I felt as if everything—her friendships, the Baking Battle, her romance—was explored only on a surface level, so I never got fully invested in any of it. There just wasn’t enough time or pages to do so.

All that said, in the end, A Fellowship of Bakers & Magic is still a cute book. It’s predictable and simple, but full of charm anyway. The character dynamics, while slightly shallow, are decent, and I liked the settings. It’s a book where you can tell the author had a lot of fun and loves the characters, which makes it easier for me to have fun too. I think Penner has a lot of potential, and wouldn’t be opposed to reading more of her work in the future.

A Fellowship of Bakers & Magic will be published on April 15th, 2025!