Before Eleven and Mike, there was Evil and Davey.

Twelve-year-old Evil Mather inherited a 17th century Curse from a witch who hexed her great-great-great grandfather, Cotton Mather. When her emotions run high, she sketches people's worst nightmares.

And then her sketches come true.

Her father, the Reverend Stanley Mather, insists the key to lifting Evil's Curse is in Cotton Mather's long-lost diary, which they discover at The Library of Strange and Unusual Things.

The diary will cure Evil, he says, and she can finally be "normal."

However, he must read the diary by the time a historical Mather day arrives, seven days from now.

At the Library, Evil unexpectedly meets Davey, a boy her age, traumatized by the recent loss of his father in a strange connection to the Mather diary. As they explore the Library together and share their dark pasts, Davey becomes Evil's only friend, but he questions whether Evil is really cursed.

Then Evil and Davey stumble upon something so shocking at the Library that Evil questions the Curse as well. The revelation causes Evil to wonder if she really knows her father and what he raised her to believe.

Torn between wanting to accept that her father will cure her of the Curse in seven days and the possibility that he is deceiving her, Evil must uncover the truth before she's out of time. What both Evil and Davey don't expect is how complicated and painful the truth can really be.

If you like STRANGER THINGS, the Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children series, or the haunting history of the Salem witch trials, you shouldn't wait to read Evil Was a Child Once.

Buy the book today to learn whether Evil is just a name.