Penance by Eliza Clark

 On a beach in a run-down seaside town on the Yorkshire coastline, sixteen-year-old Joan Wilson is set on fire by three other schoolgirls.

Nearly a decade after the horrifying murder, journalist Alec Z. Carelli has written the definitive account of the crime, drawn from hours of interviews with witnesses and family members, painstaking historical research, and most notably, correspondence with the killers themselves. The result is a riveting snapshot of lives rocked by tragedy, and a town left in turmoil.

But how much of the story is true?

Compulsively readable, provocative, and disturbing, Penance is a cleverly nuanced, unflinching exploration of gender, class, and power that raises troubling questions about the media and our obsession with true crime while bringing to light the depraved side of human nature and our darkest proclivities.

Pick up your copy here...

Penance: A Novel: Clark, Eliza: 9780063327856: Amazon.com: Books

No Author Photo

Eliza Clark is the author of Boy Parts and Penance. Boy Parts was Blackwell's 2020 Fiction Book of the Year and was later adapted for the stage. In 2022, Eliza was chosen as a finalist for the Women’s Prize Futures Award for writers under thirty-five and in 2023, was named one of Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists. She also writes for film and television. She lives in London.