author : Ysabeau S. Wilce

Flora Segunda is not looking forward to her fast-approaching 14th birthday, as she has to make a dress, give a speech, and then join the army. Dallying, she is late for school, and decides to take a shortcut through the dilapidated 11,000-roomed house she inhabits a small corner of with her high-ranking mother, mad father, and several large boisterous dogs. This detour sets of a train of events of ever-magnifying consequences, as she meets their banished butler, and starts to use her magical powers.

This is interesting, in a peculiar sort of way. It's told in a first person, slightly archaic, slightly surreal way. Events that initially appear to be just more baroque colour later turn out to have major significance, and the plot rattles along in many unexpected directions with startling setbacks. Flora is an interesting character, trying, and often failing, to emulate the legendary bold courageous ranger Nini Mo, yet pulling through in the end.

Strange, but fun.