See How Sweet Magic Can Be With a Bit of "Bliss" and "A Dash of Magic"

Bliss (The Bliss Bakery, #1)Title:  Bliss
(The Bliss Bakery #1)
Author:  Kathryn Littlewood
Format:  E-Galley
Length:  374 pages
Publisher:  Inkhouse
Rating:  4 Stars

Rosemary Bliss's family has a secret. It's the Bliss Cookery Booke—an ancient, leather-bound volume of enchanted recipes like Singing Gingersnaps.
Rose and her siblings are supposed to keep the Cookery Booke locked away while their parents are out of town, but then a mysterious stranger shows up. "Aunt" Lily rides a motorcycle and also whips up exotic (but delicious) dishes for dinner. Soon boring, non-magical recipes feel like life before Aunt Lily—a lot less fun.
So Rose and her siblings experiment with just a couple of recipes from the forbidden Cookery Booke. A few Love Muffins and Cookies of Truth couldn't cause too much trouble . . . could they?
Kathryn Littlewood's culinary caper blends rich emotional flavor with truly enchanting wit, yielding one heaping portion of hilarious family adventure.  -Amazon

My Thoughts
Rosemary Bliss and her family literally make magic in the kitchen of the Bliss Bakery, in the town of Calamity Falls.  This is the side-splitting tale of what happens when the parents leave the baking to the kids.

This is a wonderfully imaginative tale that early to middle grade children will love.  Rosemary is at the stage in her life where she is old enough to do some things at the bakery, but not old enough to use magic to bake.
She also feels like the wallflower in a family full of roses.  Stuck between her older brother, Thyme, younger brother, Sage, and baby sister, Parsley; Rose is out to prove that she can stand out in the kitchen.
Seeing the town of Calamity Falls and it's kooky cast of characters through the eyes of young Rose, and having a front row seat for all of the happy accidents that the kids' baking causes is a reading treat.  Don't think however, that there are not lessons to be learned along the way.  The Bliss children  realize the importance of principles such as:  teamwork, honesty, following directions, and forgiveness.
The helpful (not so much), villain of sorts found in the character of Aunt Lily; provides just the right dash of bitter to the kids' sweet.
She also provides the "cliff-hanger" ending that is a wonderful segue to the next book.



A Dash of Magic (The Bliss Bakery, #2)
Title:  A Dash of Magic
(The Bliss Bakery #2)
Author:  Kathryn Littlewood
Format:  E-galley
Length:  384 pages
Publisher:  Kathrine Tegen Books
Rating: 4 Stars
That’s why she challenges her aunt Lily to an international baking competition in Paris: If Rose wins, Lily agrees to return the Cookery Booke that she stole. If Rose loses—well, the consequences are too ugly to think about.

But Lily isn’t playing fair—she is using a magical ingredient to cheat. The only way for Rose to compete is for her to find magical ingredients of her own.

Together with her long-lost grandpa, his sarcastic talking cat, and a turncoat French mouse, Rose and her brothers must race around Paris to find essential—and elusive—magical ingredients to help her outbake—and outmagic—her conniving aunt.

Rose has to win or the Bliss Cookery Booke will be lost to her family forever.…  -Goodreads


My Thoughts
Rose and her family are off on another "sweet" adventure.  This time it involves the whole Bliss clan.
Mom, Dad, and Grandpa Balthazar are all headed to France to face Aunt Lily in a cooking contest.  The prize...ownership of the Cookery Booke.
This book is written so that it may stand on it's own.  There is a lot more travel and action of that sort in this read.  The fun takes place outside of the baking competition however, that is where the story tends to get a little predictable.
The cast of characters, both magical and not, is where this book shines.
The villainous Aunt Lily really gets to show her true colors this time around as well, and it is very nice to see her get what she has coming.
This is a very good read.  Not quite as funny but just as yummy as the first.


2 comments:

  1. Great review! Sounds like a great series! <3
    -heather

    ReplyDelete
  2. interesting. never eard of this. thanks for the review

    ReplyDelete

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