I reviewed the first book last Day of the Dead, but due to COVID it took a while for me to get this from my library.
It's not a Day of the Dead sequel, so I'm running this in September this year.
The story starts up close to Dia de los Reyes, Three Kings' Day, celebrated January 6. It's well after 12-year-old Leo's last baking magic fiasco resolved -- when she played with magic even though she wasn't an initiated bruja and first caused everyone at school to fall in love with a boy and then shrank him down to minuscule size.
With that prior record of causing magical calamity, you just know her next misadventure is going to be epic as well. Leo's spending more time in the bakery, and her family wants her to learn candle magic. But her best friend Caroline is feeling neglected, and a quick stop by the bakery makes it clear there's no room for Caroline in the Logrono family business.
As a result, Caroline pockets a candle for herself, but no one notices in the commotion.
The next thing Leo knows, she wakes up with her grandmother in her bedroom. The problem is, abuela is dead, muerta. Normally she appears as a ghost, but this time... she's solid. And wants some coffee.
At first Leo thinks she's come into her bruja powers, but no... this is, of course, bigger than that. This time, it's Caroline who's inadvertently called upon her family's santeria powers and resurrected -- no, not like brain-eating zombies, this is gentle middle grade misdirection, after all -- a bunch of people around town. Mrs. Leticia Morales, abuela's best friend, before they died. An old man named Old Jack, who just wants to get his garden back into shape. Mr. Nguyen, who wants to tune the piano he donated to the school.
Leo and sisters end up asking Mama for help, and Caroline stops by the bakery, and conspicuously, the one person not resurrected is Caroline's mother, who passed away and who she's been missing so much after a trip to Costa Rica without her mom.
I'll stop right there. Enjoy this mixed-up story, it's a lot of gentle, magical candle fun!
