Dark

The second gripping young adult thriller in Penelope Todd's Watermark trilogy. It's been a year since Zillah visited Roimata, a special place on the wild West Coast that changed her life last summer. Now she's heading back, expecting to meet up with Joss and Hep, the brother and sister who both challenged and betwitched her those strange, magical and sometimes terrifying few days. Yet this time, not only have Joss and Hep asked along another guest: the spiky, self-centred Flea who's like the bad fairy at the banquet - the changes Zillah sees in Joss are disturbing. After a year of low mood at varsity, it seems he's heading into a downwards spiral: a breakdown he wants to handle in his own way. His sister can't handle the final crisis and she leaves Zillah to help him through. Dark is a courageous novel which takes on increasingly difficult psychological terrains. A beautifully written and challenging story that explores the darkness of the unknown. The second, stand-alone, volume in the 'Watermark' trilogy.

About the Author :
Penelope Todd is a fiction writer for adults, children and young adults, and a memoirist. Her first book, Three's a Crowd, was a finalist in the junior fiction category of the 2000 New Zealand Post Children's and Young Adults Book Awards. Watermark was shortlisted in 2004, its standalone sequel, Dark, was shortlisted in 2005, and Zillah, the exquisite conclusion to the Watermark trilogy, was a finalist in the 2008 NZ Post Book Awards. In 2005 her science fiction novel Box received a White Raven Award in Munich for outstanding children's literature. Other fiction for children and young adults include: Peri (2001); Boy Next Door (2002); All of her novels have been listed as Storylines 'Notable Books'. A novel for adults, Island, was published in 2010. Her memoir Digging for Spain: A Writer's Journey, written while at a writer's residence just outside Barcelona, interweaves her experiences there, and growth as a writer, with reflections on her midlife transition as a mother and an individual and on the challenges of faith. She was Writer in Residence at the Dunedin College of Education in 2001, travelled to Spain to write, held an international writers' residency at Chateau de Lavigny in Switzerland, and in 2007 participated in the International Writers' Program in Iowa, a three-month residency offered by Creative New Zealand. In August 2009, assisted by a CNZ grant, she travelled to Argentina in order to complete the writing, translation and adaptation of a bilingual novel, Amigas, with Argentinean writer Elena Bossi. Born in Christchurch, Penelope trained there as a nurse, and had three (now adult) children before spending two decades in Otago, mostly in Dunedin. Also an editor, Penelope is the publisher at Rosa Mira Books, New Zealand's first independent eBook publisher. She currently lives itinerantly with her husband, Raymond Huber. See more at www.penelopetodd.co.nz and www.rosamirabooks.com.