Gradually he persuades her to help restore him-and hence the grandeur of Crackpot Hall. Instead she emerges on an unfamiliar floor, stumbles into a massive library, and meets the banished butler, Valefor. So Flora, who is a bit of a rebel, decides one day to use the Elevator to retrieve an overdue book in her rush to school. It’s a house of limitless potential-albeit much reduced and rundown since Flora’s mother abrogated the house’s ghostly butler, who is responsible for maintaining the house in all senses. Imagine stepping through those police box doors and discovering that vast world to explore-let alone all of the places the TARDIS can travel! Crackpot Hall is kind of like that. I love Doctor Who, and one of my favourite things about the show is the TARDIS and its limitless potential. But before we get to that, let’s talk about Crackpot Hall. This alone is a cool enough concept around which to base an entire book, so it surprised me that Wilce actually ignores this for the majority of the book and sends Flora off on adventures that take her all around the city (and even a little beyond it). Its rooms rearrange themselves, and indeed, seem to go on without end.

She lives in a house-Crackpot Hall-made of magic. But it’s hard to describe just how quickly Ysabeau Wilce pulls the rug from beneath the reader, removing any possibility of normality and dragging us into a fantastic world where anything can happen-but that doesn’t mean it will.įlora’s world is one where magic is real and a part of daily life, but it’s rather unfashionable. The name alone, Flora Segunda of Crackpot Hall, promises a whimsical adventure. What a seriously impressive and original young adult fantasy novel.

Flora's Dare by Ysabeau S. Wilce