This novel felt like a shojo manga in novel form, with a young pâtissier setting out with her friend, and a magical sheep/sugar fairy, to save her grandmother's pâtisserie.

Elementary schooler Ichika lives with her aunt and her grandmother at her grandmother's pâtisserie, until her grandmother has a fall and ends up in hospital. With her aunt working full time, Ichika decides to take charge of keeping the pâtisserie open on weekends. But, it turns out that her grandmother's lost her memories of the recipes of her famous desserts, and strangely, the cookbook is blank too... Until Moko appears, a magical dessert sugar fairy in the shape of a sheep (it's a lot... there's illustrations!), explaining that to bring back her grandmother's memories, Ichika must figure out the missing recipes from the book, and bake them herself. Thus, Ichika, Moko, and Ichika's school friend Azuma head off on magical trips around Japan, learning about their specialities and saving the day!

This book was definitely for a younger audience, but it was still fun to read, and the focus on different regional specialities around Japan added a nice factual element to a magical story.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the (Japanese-language) eARC!