Erin Eileen Almond
Erin Eileen Almond is originally from East Hartford, Connecticut, and attended the Hartford Conservatory. Her short stories, essays, and reviews have been published in The Boston Globe, Colorado Review, and Normal School, and on The Rumpus.net and WBUR's Cognoscenti. She is a graduate of the UC–Irvine MFA program and Wesleyan University, and a recipient of a St. Botolph Club Foundation Emerging Artists Grant. Erin currently lives outside Boston with her husband, Steve, and their three children.
Photo Credit: Sharona Jacobs Photography
by Erin Eileen Almond
“Witches’ Dance is a symphony of genius and insanity, love and danger. It is a novel about the secrets we keep and the dream of acceptance. Intricate and beautifully complex.”
—Ramona Ausubel, author of Sons and Daughters of
Ease and Plenty and Awayland
Hilda Greer's love affair with the violin began at the age of seven, when she witnessed the spectacular performance and breakdown of prodigy virtuoso Phillip Manns. Years later, the two meet at Hilda’s conservatory audition, where she plays the piece that started it all: Paganini’s Le Streghe, or Witches’ Dance.
Entranced by the character of Hilda’s playing and unable to resist the song’s siren call, Phillip takes Hilda under his wing. The two start a witches’ dance of their own, a whirlwind that sweeps them toward the International Paganini Competition. When their curtain falls, one will bask in the music world’s acclaim—and the other’s world will be shattered completely.