When I finished this delightful fantasy about Gracie Gillypot and Prince Marcus, Gubble the troll, and talkative Marlon the bat, I went straight to the library to pick up the first volume (The Robe of Skulls). There are four volumes in this series so far (The Bag of Bones and The Heart of Glass are the other two.).

Gracie Gillypot is the heroine who escaped from her evil step-father and step-sister in the first volume. She now lives with the Old Crones who monitor the Web surrounding the Five Kingdoms. She is aided in her adventures by noble Prince Marcus, Gubble, and Marlon (and his family of bats).

In this fourth installment (and hopefully, not the last), rumors of dragons flying outside the limits of the kingdom looking for a dragon’s egg laid eighty years ago cause the disgustingly evil Grandpappy Canker (a.k.a. Old Malignancy) to plot its theft. The dragon’s egg has the ability to increase one’s evilness. Grandpappy Canker is assisted by his repulsively evil granddaughters (his “Cankerettes”), named Conducta and Globula. Against this legion of evil, Gracie, a Trueheart, and her friends must pit their goodness.