Flora Trilogy

Flora knows better than to take shortcuts in her family home, Crackpot Hall the house has eleven thousand rooms, and ever since her mother banished the magical butler, those rooms move around at random. But Flora is late for school, so she takes the unpredictable elevator anyway. Huge mistake. Lost in her own house, she stumbles upon the long-banished butlerandinto a mind-blowing muddle of intrigue and betrayal that changes her world forever. Full of wildly clever plot twists, this extraordinary novel establishes Ysabeau Wilce as a compelling voice in teen fantasy.

Flora Fyrdraaca wants nothing more than to be a ranger, and for that she must master the magickal-and dangerous-language of Gramatica. But before she can find the ideal teacher, her aspirations are put to the test. Would a true ranger be intimidated by a tentacle that reaches for her from the depths of a toilet? Be daunted by her best friend's transformation into a notorious outlaw, thanks to a pair of sparkly stolen boots? Be cowed by the revelation that only she can rescue the city of Califa from the violent earthquakes that threaten its survival? Never. Saving her city and her best friend are the least a Girl of Spirit can do-yet what Flora doesn't expect are the life-altering revelations she learns about her family and herself. This ebook features a teaser chapter from the third Flora book, Flora's Fury.

Despite her troublesome attraction to magick, Flora has more or less spent her life doing what's been expected of her. Now, at sixteen, she knows that this path has been strewn with secrets. Sure that her true mother, Tiny Doom-long believed to be dead-is alive, Flora becomes determined to find her and leave behind the lies she's been told about who she is. Flora's quest takes her on a journey from lawless islands to the deadly desert, and into an unexpected romance with a brooding stranger who reveals himself to be a kindred spirit. And it all becomes far more dangerous when Flora realizes how desperately their enemies want Tiny Doom-and Flora herself-dead.

These inter-connected stories are set in an opulent quasi-historical world of magick and high manners called the Republic of Califa. The Republic is a strangely familiar place - a baroque approximation of Gold Rush era-California with an overlay of Aztec ceremony - yet the characters who populate it are true originals: rockstar magicians, murderous gloves, bouncing boy terrors, blue tinted butlers, sentient squids, and a three-year-old Little Tiny Doom and her vengeful pink plush pig. By turn whimsical and horrific (sometime in the same paragraph), Wilce's stories have been characterized as "screwball comedies for goths" but they could also be described as "historical fantasies" or "fanciful histories" for there are nuggets of historical fact hidden in them there lies. Ysabeau S. Wilce is the author of Flora Segunda, Andre Norton Award–winner Flora's Dare, and Flora's Fury, and she has published work in Asimov's, Steampunk!, and Fantasy & Science Fiction. She lives in San Francisco, California.