Flora Segunda (by Ysabeau S. Wilce)

One day, in a hurry, she foolishly takes an unreliable elevator in her house, and finds herself in a hidden library where she meets Valefor, her home's magical butler who has been banished by her mother. Resenting her mother, and the endless chores she has to do because of Valefor's banishment, she agrees to help him gain strength and return. But she doesn't know what she's getting herself into.

Rookie novelist Ysabeau Wilce based this book on short stories she wrote, and it shows -- it reads like a mishmash of ideas, and frequently loses narrative propulsion as the author explores some byway.

That said, FLORA SEGUNDA is not without charm. Both major and secondary characters are winning, and Wilce's quirky imagination gives the fantasy world she creates the flavor of something new. Her way of combining formal fantasy-speak with made-up words and phrases based in different languages, and anachronistic expressions from our own world, shouldn't work, but somehow does, infusing the book with a lightly humorous feeling. Readers who love fantasy, but could do without the "battle between good and evil" storylines and the violence they entail, may find this odd duck of a novel curiously satisfying.