Try free for 30 days

A 30-day trial plus your first audiobook free.
1 credit/month after trial—to buy any title you like, yours to keep.
Listen all you want to a selection of thousands of Audible Originals, audiobooks and podcasts.
$16.45 a month after 30 day trial. Cancel anytime.
It Wasn't Always Like This cover art

It Wasn't Always Like This

By: Joy Preble
Narrated by: Jennifer Grace
Free with 30-day trial

$16.45/month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy Now for $27.99

Buy Now for $27.99

Pay using voucher balance (if applicable) then card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions Of Use and Privacy Notice and authorise Audible to charge your designated credit card or another available credit card on file.

Publisher's Summary

In 1916, Emma O'Neill is frozen in time. After sampling an experimental polio vaccine brewed on a remote island off St. Augustine, Florida, she and her family stop aging, as do the Ryans, her family's business partners. In a way this suits Emma fine, because she's in love with Charlie Ryan. Being 17 forever with him is a dream.

But soon a group of religious fanatics, the Church of Light, takes note. Drinking the elixir has made the O'Neills and Ryans impervious to aging, but not to murder. When their families are massacred, Emma and Charlie are the only ones who escape with their lives.

On the run, Emma is tragically separated from Charlie. For the next hundred years, she plays a cat-and-mouse game with the Church of Light and their descendants. She becomes a private investigator when a series of murders whose victims all bear more than a passing resemblance to her indicate that her enemies are closing in. Yet as the danger grows, so does Emma s hope for finding the boy she's certain is still out there....

©2016 Soho Press, Inc. and Joy Preble (P)2016 Recorded Books

What listeners say about It Wasn't Always Like This

Average Customer Ratings

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

In the spirit of reconciliation, Audible acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community. We pay our respect to their elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today.