The Baker Who Couldn't Bake

Every gingerbread cottage needs a baker, even if he can’t bake… yet. 

Deep within the heart of the forbidding Stillwood lies a legendary cottage. The townsfolk whisper stories of a wicked witch who eats lost children, but when Hugo stumbles across it while following a spicy cat named Brimstone, he finds something else entirely.

Occupying the cottage is Agnes, a sharp-tongued baker with a gentle soul. Before Hugo quite understands how it happened, he is moving in as her apprentice. He learns that there is a deep, ancient magic rooted in the cottage, its menagerie of animals, and the daily bakes that vanish through a mysterious portal to ‘the other place’. The only thing Hugo isn't learning? How to bake.

When Agnes peacefully passes on, Hugo inherits the cottage, the rolling pin, and a responsibility to the world beyond the portal. There’s just one small problem: his baking efforts are disastrous.

To keep the ancient, world-crossing magic alive, Hugo must learn to trust the house, listen to the animals, and figure out how to be the baker the gingerbread cottage needs.

Goodreads