Bliss by Kathryn Littlewood

 As I've mentioned before, I don't read a lot of YA fiction these days, but this was a Free Friday selection at Barnes & Noble, so I downloaded it. It was a fairly amusing little tale about a family who own a magical bakery in the town of Calamity Falls. The four children in the family are Parsley, Sage, Rosemary (Rose) and Thyme (Ty), of course. Rose is at that awkward twelve year old stage where she's becoming aware of boys, and when social standing and what people think of you becomes all-consuming. She has worked faithfully in the family business, where her parents create magic muffins, breads and desserts, which cure people's ailments, as well as more mundane treats.

So, when her parents have to leave to help a neighboring town with a flu epidemic and Rose and Ty are left in charge, Rose obviously and unavoidable falls into the trap of trying to prove how good she is by sneaking some recipes from the family's secret magical cookbook. Things get more dangerous when her long lost Aunt Lily arrives for a visit. Lily has long been the black sheep of the family, and it's apparent to the reader, though not the children, that her only reason for being in town is to grab the cookbook full of magical recipes to satisfy her own ambitions.

All sorts of misadventures befall the children while their parents are away, and it's all good innocent G-rated fun. A confection baked of Harry Potter Lite with a pinch of Lemony Snickett and a dash of Disney's Sorcerer's Apprentice.