Middle Grade Fantasy
Sprinkle storms? Exploding cookie jars? Flying donuts?
Eleven-year-old Angie certainly doesn’t think any of that will happen when she enters the famous Cinnamon Falls Gingerbread Contest. All she wants is to win by baking a gingerbread replica of the entire town and impress her best friend who’s been avoiding her since the start of sixth grade.
But when Angie’s town crumbles in disaster, she gets the surprise of her life; someone is repairing her gingerbread in the middle of the night. Someone with a magical wooden spoon and a big batch of troubles all her own who could make Angie’s baking dreams come true—or make her the least popular kid at Cinnamon Middle School!
Now with the contest deadline looming, she must figure out how to save her unexpected new friend from a not-so-sweet plot before she’s whisked out of Angie’s life forever.
A plot that may even threaten the real town of Cinnamon Falls.
"How To Almost Win A Gingerbread Contest is a cozy, comforting middle-grade novel, perfect for winter reading...the story centers on familiar middle-grade worries about friendship, identity and belonging--but with a magical twist...The text is lively, filled with both humorous magical incidents and delightful descriptions of baking that you can practically taste...What more could you want from a Christmas story?"
--The Children's Book Review, Editor's Pick, Best books for kids
Seasons of Kidlit Book Awards Honorable Mention Winner for 2025!
Middle Grade Fantasy
Rock candy prisons? Caramel flooded streets? Rampaging cookie giants?
Not at the Cinnamon Falls Gingerbread Festival!
It’s summer after sixth grade, and Angie’s dreaming of the fun she’ll have at Festival getting her cookbook signed by her favorite celebrity chef, eating deep-fried gingerbread men, and watching the parade and the fireworks. She wants to do it all with her two best friends, Hazel and Wesley, although Wesley’s been too busy to bake now that he has new friends on the Ultimate Frisbee team. And Hazel? Angie hasn’t heard from Hazel in months. Not a single sprinkle message.
But Festival takes a shocking turn when, to Angie’s astonishment, Hazel’s magic spoon turns up in an antique box hidden beneath the statue of Honoria Castle in the park. How did it get there? How long has it been there? And most importantly, how many more sugar sprite secrets has Hazel been keeping?
Angie and Wesley whip up a plan to return Hazel’s spoon to her and end up on the time-twisting ride of their lives in search of the mysterious author of a banished cookbook full of dangerous, forbidden recipes.
A cookbook the Blackapples are chasing to bake a monstrous pastry with the power to destroy Cinnamon Falls. Unless Angie and her friends find it first.
Welcome Readers!
I'm Karen Kent, an indie author of middle grade stories. I hope to take my readers on magical journeys full of friendship and adventure (and lots of laughter) between the covers of my books.
I grew up on the east coast and now call the Pacific Northwest home where I live with my family, including two dogs and a cat.
When not writing, I might be found tending to tomato plants, creating collage art, reading articles about astrobiology, or searching a beach for the elusive piece of perfect sea glass.
I am a member of SCBWI Western Washington.
CONTACT
To reach out, email me at Karenjkent23@gmail.com.