‘… harrowing, beautifully written, insightful and absorbing … unique and absolutely hypnotic.’ Emily Maguire, author of An Isolated Incident

Meet Hester. A child of dark beginnings and few words. Living a painfully sheltered existence forced upon her by reclusive parents, Hester befriends the inanimate objects in her sheltered life: Cat, Broom, Handle and Axe, who speak to her in return.

When Hester’s parents are forced to send her to school, the little girl is overjoyed at meeting children her own age and making her first real friend - Mary. But her pleasure is cruelly taken away from her and she returns to the overwhelming oppressiveness of home.

But no one can stop Hester from growing up, and it is when innocence becomes experience that she finds the strength to take action. All she has endured in her short life culminates in a climactic moment that will change her life forever.

The story told in One Foot Wrong is often dark, but the sheer blazing brilliance of Sofie Laguna’s language, imagery and imagination illuminates every page and makes this novel an exhilarating, enlightening and ultimately joyous act of faith. ‘The stars shine darkest out of the deepest dark.’

‘… surprisingly uplifting, cathartic and affecting.’ Louise Swinn, The Age

‘An authentic voice, an evocation of childhood and memory that, for all its terrors, evokes the sublime, tragic moment when innocence submits to experience … This is the opposite of what the tabloids do: this is humane, passionate, true.’ Christos Tsiolkas, author of The Slap and Barracuda