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Preservation

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Preservation

By: Jock Serong
Narrated by: Conrad Coleby
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About this listen

Preservation, based on the true story of the wreck of the Sydney Cove, sees master storyteller Jock Serong turn his talents to historical narrative.

On a beach not far from the isolated settlement of Sydney in 1797, a fishing boat picks up three shipwreck survivors, distressed and terribly injured. They have walked hundreds of miles across a landscape whose features - and inhabitants - they have no way of comprehending. They have lost 14 companions along the way. Their accounts of the ordeal are evasive.

It is Lieutenant Joshua Grayling’s task to investigate the story. He comes to realise that those 14 deaths were contrived by one calculating mind, and as the full horror of the men’s journey emerges, he begins to wonder whether the ruthless killer poses a danger to his own family.

©2018 Jock Serong (P)2018 W. F. Howes Ltd Historical Mystery Thriller & Suspense Fiction
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This is a typical Jock Serong novel - a thoroughly researched, slowly revealed and very believable plot. As with all his writing, you are left feeling bereft and also devastated at the injustices of life.

The story was spoilt a bit for me by the narrator’s very dodgy Scottish accents. I stopped listening sometimes because it was too excruciating and it took me a long time to get into the story and be able to ignore his weird and twisting attempts to sound Scottish.

I mean no offence to the narrator … I can’t do a Scottish accent either!!

Highly recommend the book but maybe not the Audible version.

A little spoilt by the narration

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Jock Serong has woven an incredible story into the truths that are hidden and exposed in the Australian geography, landscapes, it’s coastal environs and it’s first peoples - indigenous and newer.

Told with authenticity, a heinous voyage, an impossible trek and the compelling intelligence and psychology of a violent psychopath blended with insight of how non Anglo people may have interacted with the Indigenous peoples and how the land and seascapes must have been before the new peoples arrival changed everything.

Serong sets the scene for his sequels beautifully but also for the subsequent evolution of Australia and the root of our social fabric.

This book is a National treasure.

A Ripping Yarn

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A chillingly dark story of what might have been the truth of ship wreck in early NSW

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great story although I had trouble hearing it sometimes with the quiet voices and I listen while driving trucks

a great piece of history

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I do enjoy these historical stories. I found this very slow to start. Although the narration was excellent, I do believe this book would be better in the reading than listening. I found it difficult to stay focused on the story at times.

Slow start, interesting in the end

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Alison Huber put it best:
Preservation is a skilful and, most importantly, very entertaining work of imagination, full of tension and menace, that keeps the reader sweating over what will become of the protagonists until the very end. A more odious villain than the imposter tea merchant, Figge, could hardly be imagined: he and another unreliable survivor hinder attempts by officials in Sydney to understand exactly what happened. Serong uses all his crime-writing tricks of the trade in this literary novel, and it’s hugely effective. This is the kind of historical fiction writing that makes the reader wonder where the ‘real’ past ends and invention begins
Alison Huber, Head Buyer at Readings

I found myself Researching The Sydney Cove

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I loved how the narrators have described the encounters with the indigenous peoples. The accounts of cultivations, settlements, fire techniques, etc. Stories not often told in Shipwreck novels. Great job Jock!

Amazing telling of first indigenous encounters

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I love love love Jock Serong's other books, but this was just too raw. The violence stayed with me days and nights. Obviously well written and spoken to have such an impact but so sad and the villain so sick. I hoped for redemption at the end but I couldn't finish.

couldn't finish

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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.