Once Upon a Wickedness

Ten-year-old orphan Dance Violet might have had a short and troubled history, but it hasn’t dampened her warrior spirit – not in the slightest. And that’s a good thing, because something is rotten in her village, and no one else has the courage to try put things right. People who ask questions disappear overnight and the village children are left to fend for themselves under the tyrannical schoolteachers Murk and Misselthwaite. There are whispers that a beautiful but wicked woman, ‘the golden-haired hellion’, appeared at a wedding ten years ago and was the start of all the trouble. Dance has some gifts that she’s only just beginning to discover, and while she knows it’s dangerous to ask questions, she is determined to find this golden-haired hellion – even if it means getting Disappeared.