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Book Review of Flora's Dare: How a Girl of Spirit Gambles All to Expand Her Vocabulary, Confront a Bouncing Boy Terror, and Try to Save Califa from a Shaky Doom (Despite Being Confined to Her Room)

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Reviewed by Cat for TeensReadToo.com

Flora Fydraaca is one busy young lady.

Between her search for a Gramatica instructor, dealing with the fallout of her best friend Udo's moneymaking schemes in the bounty-hunting biz, elder sister Idden's desertion from Califa's military, discovering and thwarting the source of a series of deadly earthquakes threatening the city, a freshly sober and keenly aware father, a burgeoning crush on Califa's greatest living magickal adept and old Fydraaca family enemy Lord Axacaya, tentacles accosting her in public bathrooms, family secrets, assassination attempts, and inadequate sartorial resources - it's a wonder the girl has time to breathe.

At least this time around, Crackpot Manor's one and only accessible potty is up and running...

There is so much going on in FLORA'S DARE that it's by no means an overstatement to call the book a fantasy fiction lover's treasure trove. Author Ysabeau S. Wilce has done a remarkable job creating and populating Flora's world with multiple, complex plots and subplots, and plenty of intriguing information to keep readers coming back for more.

I deeply appreciated the level of sophistication Ms. Wilce has invested in the creation of Flora's world. She easily juggles plot threads without causing any confusion to the reader. By building the backstory of Flora's friends, family, adversaries, and the heroine herself into the narrative, she has created a series that will sustain itself over a number of books, striking the perfect balance between a compelling story and characters that are quirky yet deeply flawed.