Book details

Book description

The third volume in Penelope Todd's award-winning à  Watermark Trilogyà  , this strong, thoughtful and affecting novel brings its main character, Zillah, fully into womanhood. Zillah revisits her special hideaway, Roimata, on the West Coast, as she tries to absorb the trauma of a blighted working holiday in Spain. It's an attempt to give herself time to make sense of her immediate past and clarify her feelings for her friend, Joseph. She discovers the army has closed off the area and, instead, has to hike her way through the Coast's wild weather and wilderness to a temporary refuge in a well-used hut. Zillah encounters an array of eccentric and sometimes raw characters: not only Joseph himself, but also a à  survivalistà  , trampers and hunters. Events en route mean that Zillah not only has to deal with the haunting episode from Spain, but also the rough basics of living in the bush and enduring the company of some testing strangers. Yet Zillah also has to learn the limitations of her own desires and responses: respect for herself, for Joseph's wishes, too: and that leaping into an intimate relationship isn't the way to eraseà Â-or escapeà Â- the events of the past nine months. Beautifully evocative of its wilderness setting and the heat of Spain, Zillah is a spellbinding, psychological thriller: exquisite, astute, affecting. à  A rewarding conclusion to the à  Watermarkà  trilogy.à  Trevor Agnew Of the Watermark trilogy: à  there are some standout passages à  which virtually electrify the page.à  Penelope Todd lives in Dunedin, New Zealand. Her books have been shortlisted three times for the NZ Post Children's and Young Adult Book Awards and she has a following of loyal readers who appreciate her sensitive, intelligent writing. She received the Writer in Residence at the Dunedin College of Education in 2001, and participated in the University of Iowaà  s International Writers Programme, 2007.