Hazel Gaynor's newest novel, Before Dorothy, comes amid the huge revival in alternative storytelling surrounding one of the oldest stories around – The Wizard of Oz. This novel doesn’t deal with the coming-of-age stories of witches Elphaba and Glinda, as we’re watching play out on screen with the two-part movie adaptation of Wicked; this retelling is instead from the perspective of a much smaller character of the original novel – Dorothy’s Aunt Em (or Emily).