#21 Hellboy Universe Essentials: Hellboy by Mike Mignola, Various

 

This is exactly what it says on the cover, essential stories to try out Hellboy without committing yourself to reading all the books. As a fan there is some great stuff in here and the pancake story always makes me smile.  This is a great intro book for someone to get as a gift that only knows Hellboy from the movies but is a bit daunted by all the titles that are out there.

 

Digital review copy provided by the publisher through Edelweiss

#22 A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking by T. Kingfisher

 Mona is a bakery wizard, her powers are confined to baked goods and not the bigger and flashier powers of wizards that work for the army to protect the city.  But someone is hunting down any and all magic users in her town and when she finds a dead body in her bakery and barely survives her own brush with death she runs into hiding with only the help of her gingerbread man sidekick and the brother of the girl found dead.  Mona wants to do the right things to keep her home safe but someone else has other plans.  There is a lot of thinking out of the box for Mona as she learns how to use dough in new ways to keep herself and the town safe.  This is definitely a YA book but doesn’t make it any less of a fun read.