The Deadly Dance - Softcover

Penny's parents are hoping that a Greek vacation is just what the doctor ordered for her. She's not getting along at all with her older brother, and she's so unhappy that she dreads going home - she mopes around and, more importantly, doesn't eat.

Since her mother studied the Classics in university and her father's mother was from Crete, Penny's parents decide to bring her to Greece on a special vacation - without her brother. Penny's finally learning to relax and enjoy herself her a bit when her parents take her on a tour of the ancient Minoan Palace at Knossos - home of the fabled labyrinth of the Minotaur - but then something strange happens. Penny inexplicable finds herself imitating the beginning gymnastic vault - as the tourists disappear and a crowd cheers fiercely and the dust flies in the bright sunshine and a huge bull charges toward her....

And then she's back, shaken, with her parents and the other tourists, and she remembers a mural she saw earlier: the one of the bull dancers, the acrobats of the bull games, the fearless ones who dodge and leap the razor-sharp horns of bulls. The vacation continues, but Penny finds herself drawn back to the Minoan Place and its fascinating labyrinth. This time she completes her involuntary somersault and finds herself again in the arena, with the frenzied crowd surrounding her and the dust flying as a huge white bull paws the ground in front of her and its horns glint in the sun.

Set evocatively in the beauty of Greece and drawing on the mythology that country is so famous for, Taylor spins a rollicking story centred on "the deadly dance," the ancient tradition that sees young people defying death to dance with furious bulls - all for the amusement of others.