The Writers of Wales Database

EVANS, PENELOPE

Penelope Evans was born in Wales in 1959, and grew up in Scotland and Switzerland. She attended the University of St. Andrews where she studied Classics and then law, before practising as a criminal barrister in London. After marrying a fellow lawyer, she took a year out to have a baby and started writing her first novel. She repeated this process with her second daughter shortly afterwards, becoming intrigued with time and how her children changed rapidly as they grew, whilst she seemed to stayed the same.

Her books follow these themes of children and time travel. For example - Freezing has a three year old child who threads her way through the plot, haunting Stewart the young man trying to find her. In First Fruits, a collection of teenagers are bewildered by the lies the adults tell. Penelope describes herself as a crime writer. Densely plotted, sometimes filled with menace, her books seem to be all about crime and the adults who commit them. But the undertones are always all about children. Penelope now lives in Buckinghamshire with her husband and two daughters, where she combines writing fiction with journalism. Penelope is a Member of Academi.

Selected Publications:
The Last Girl (Black Swan, 1995)
Freezing (Black Swan, 1997)
First Fruits (Soho Press, 2000)
A Fatal Reunion (Allison & Busby, 2005) 
My Perfect Silence (Allison & Busby, 2006)
Saving Grace (Allison & Busby, 2007)
The Weight of Water (Allison & Busby, 2009)



The Weight of Water (Allison & Busby, 2009)

After a traumatic experience in London, Sara Ravenscroft's husband Tom decides it's time for them to move to the country, away from the stress of the city. They find their dream house and all seems well, but it is here that the haunting dream which has plagued Sara since childhood starts to creep into the everyday. The small child in a little white dress and red shoes starts to appear along the river bank at the edge of their idyllic home - is this just a vision or is there something else to connect them? For Sara, the village is cold and unwelcoming and she receives a frosty reception from a community weary of outsiders. Along with the imposing Victorian asylum, the old church with its crowded graveyard only emphasises the insecurity she feels. When a movement draws her towards a headstone covered in moss, Sara is compelled to look further. The warmth of the stone is not the only shocking revelation - Events start to unfold, drawing Sara into a tumbling downward spiral. Does the past hold the key to her dream or is it the present she needs to be wary of? The unnerving movement always caught too late - is this a trick of the mind or an important piece in the puzzle that is Sara's life?

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