Old Balmain House family story moves to the next generation A man sits at a table in a prison cell, hands shackled. The door opens. In comes a slip of a girl, eyes darting around, face drawn and white. She is small and slender, like a teenager, but seems older. The man leers with desire - so long since he has seen a pretty girl. "Well, well, look what the fairy godmother has brought to pleasure me." The girl recoils as if struck, then steadies and sits down facing him. She stares at the man intently, mixed loathing and desperation in her eyes. She wrings her hand together then holds still, as if to gather courage. Finally she speaks, "Please, I need to know if you are my father?" Two decades pass. Lizzie's daughter, Catherine, has a child, Amelie. But soon after Amelie's third birthday, the unthinkable happens. She gets sick: the unspoken word is 'CANCER', childhood leukaemia Treatment fails, it is all to no avail, a little girl's life hangs in the balance. A bone marrow transplant the last chance - but no match, no donor is found. Could another relative help - perhaps her father, aunt, uncle or cousin But who is Catherine's real father, the man who raped her mother. Three men were there that night; one is murdered, two are in jail. She must ask for help from these monsters who abused her mother These men are hardened criminals - she must visit them in prison. She cannot bear to ask, to beg them and plead for help, But yet she must try - it is her daughter's only chance. It truly is a Devil's Choice
About the Author: Graham Wilson lives in Sydney Australia. He has completed and published nine separate books, and also a range of combined novel box sets. They comprise two series, 1. The Old Balmain House Series 2. The Crocodile Spirit Dreaming Series along with a family memoir. Children of Arnhem's Kaleidoscope The first series starts with a novel called The Old Balmain House, based on an old a weatherboard cottage in Sydney where the author lived. Here a photo was discovered of a small girl who lived and died about 100 years ago. The book imagines the story of her life and family, based in the real Balmain, an early inner Sydney suburb, with it's locations and and historical events providing part of the story background. The second novel in this series, Lizzie's Tale builds on The Old Balmain House setting, It is the story of a working class teenage girl who lives in this same house in the 1950s and 1960s, It tells of how, when she becomes pregnant she is determined not to surrender her baby for adoption, and of her struggle to survive in this unforgiving society. The third novel in this series, Devil's Choice, follows the next generation of the family in Lizzie's Tale. Lizzie's daughter is faced with the awful choice of whether to seek the help of one of her mother's rapists' in trying to save the life of her own daughter who is inflicted with an incurable disease. The Crocodile Spirit Dreaming Series comprises five novels based in Outback Australia. The first novel Just Visiting. tells the story of an English backpacker, Susan, who visits the Northern Territory and becomes captivated and in great danger from a man who loves crocodiles. The second book in the series, Creature of an Ancient Dreaming, (previously The Diary), follows the consequences of the first book based around the discovery of this man's remains and his diary and Susan, being placed on trial for murder. The book, Children of Arnhem's Kaleidoscope, is the story of the author's own life in the Northern Territory. It tells of his childhood in an aboriginal community in remote Arnhem Land, in Australia's Northern Territory, one of its last frontiers. It tells of the people, danger and beauty of this place, and of its transformation over the last half century with the coming of aboriginal rights and the discovery or uranium. It also tells of his surviving an attack by a large crocodile and of his work over two decades in the outback of the NT.