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Flora Fyrdraaca knows taking shortcuts inCrackpot Hall can be risky. After all, when a House has eleven thousand decaying rooms that shift about at random, there's no telling where a person might end up. But it's not just household confusion that vexes Flora, what with Mamma always away being Commanding General of the Army, Poppy drowning his sorrows in drink, and Crackpot Hall too broken down to magickally provide the clean towels and hot waffles that are a Fyrdraaca's birthright.
Yet Flora is nothing if not a Girl of Spirit. So when she takes a forbidden shortcut and stumbles upon her family's biggest secret--
Valefor, the banished Butler--she and her best friend Udo plunge happily into the grand adventure of restoring Valefor to his rightful (or so he says) position. If only Flora knew that meddling with a magickal being can go terribly awry--and that soon she will have to find a way to restore herself before it is Too Late.
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Accolades:
“A thoroughly original magickal world marks this witty debut.”
Starred Kirkus Review
“Quirky but appealing characters, a distinctive magickal setting, wry humor, and some insightful comments about coming-of-age and asserting oneself over the adults in charge.”
Booklist
“Like Pullman’s Lyra Silvertongue or Pratchett’s Tiffany Aching, Flora Fyrdraaca is a deswcendent of Jo March, rather than a fainting beauty who needs rescuing”
New York Times Book Review
“One of the truly memorable fantasies of this year...”
Locus
“By Gormenghast out of any Ripping Yarn you care to think of...highly original, strange and amusing.”
Diana Wynne Jones
Author of Howl’s Moving Castle
“An immensely and delightfully complicated novel, with secrets within secrets and machinations within machinations.”
Infodad.com
“An incredible book with a powerful message about willpower..a great book to choose for bookreports…this is one book that will stay with you long after you have finished reading it.”
Suite 101: Children’s Books website
“A wonderful book, and Flora Segunda is a wonderful character—plucky and loyal, sure, but also tender and hare-brained.”
Paul Park
Author of The Princess of Roumania
“’Un-put-down-able’, and anyone that picks it up cannot fail to be captivated by it. A joy to read, right from page one…Oh, and by the way, it's perfect for grown-ups too, but don't tell the kids you've pinched it.”
Gateway Monthly
“…Subversive young adult novel…Wilce quietly invents a thoughtful gender-bending paradigm.”
Gwenda Bond
Tiptree Award Jurist
“A more long-winded and nonscensical book I can not imagine. Hyperbolic, hyperbaric and hyperalgesic. For a more accurate rendtion of these events, please read my “A True Accounting of How Flora Segunda Bungled It All and Blamed It On Me,” currently being seralized in Butlers’ House & Home.”
Valefor Fyrdraaca,
Butler of Crackpot Hall
“Cool hats.”
The Dainty Pirate |
