Showing results by narrator "Elisa Armstrong" in All Categories

A rich Scottish industrialist, Thomas Wrenfether, impulsively embarks on a mad scheme to build a paddlesteamer out of dubiously sourced European cherrywood on the other side of the world, in booming Melbourne, Australia. But nothing goes according to plan.

When future governor Philip Gidley King sailed with the First Fleet to the new colony, he had his pick of the convict women to look after him. Two years, and two sons later, he set out back to England to provide a report on Sydney and its newly tamed Norfolk Island, as his mistress Ann Innet begged him to return to her and their children. After a year and a half he did – but bringing with him a shocking secret that would cut her to the core, and change all their lives forevermore.

Carly-Jay Metcalfe was born with cystic fibrosis, survived a double-lung transplant at the age of 21 and faced a rare cancer at the age of 30. What she has endured should have killed her, but her humour, courage and optimism became her best survival skills. From her hospitalised childhood to her many friendships, loves and losses, Metcalfe shares the fickle nature of life with candour and warmth. She writes with compelling insight about organ donation, opioid addiction and survivor's guilt, while still managing to find joy amongst the wreckage.