"A heartbreaking account of enduring suffering and loss.
When Cindy Gambino dropped her three boys off at their dad's on Father’s Day 2005 she had no idea she would never see them again. By day’s end, their bodies lay at the bottom of an icy dam, a tragedy that sparked one of the most controversial and prolonged murder cases in Australian history.
Award-winning author and journalist Megan Norris followed the case for eight years, chronicling Cindy’s heartbreaking journey through a trial, retrial, two failed appeals, and a 2013 High Court ruling that blocked Victorian father Robert Farquharson’s final bid for freedom, putting him behind bars for at least the next thirty-three years.
Through exclusive, intimate interviews with Cindy and her family, and a meticulous examination of the overwhelming evidence before the courts, Norris details how two juries concluded Farquharson was guilty of murdering his children. This book offers valuable and first-hand insight into a crime intended to last a lifetime.
Told through Cindy’s eyes in the aftermath, ‘On Father’s Day’ is a mother’s legacy to the family she left behind when she passed away in 2022. Updated with an epilogue, her heartbreaking story shows that this is a crime that goes way beyond the grave.
‘On Father’s Day’ was written by Megan at Cindy’s request. This book is her voice.
‘The best analysis I’ve read of the ultimate act of family violence… no other journalist and writer has had the involvement in this case like Norris has,’ EMILY WEBB, Author and podcaster.
‘A harrowing, deeply compelling narrative that plunges the reader into the dark heart of domestic violence and the unimaginable horror of retaliatory filicide’ DR. YVONNE KALLANE, Ph.D., MA (Human Rights), MAICD, Founder, Change the Ending
‘Extraordinary read … powerful insights into the widespread patterns of coercive control and profound impacts of enduring trauma.’ SHARON WILKINSON - DV Lawyer
‘Cindy’s experience and Megan’s thorough research provide a devastating, confronting and utterly compelling read.’ DR DEBORAH KIRKWOOD, Author of Just Say Goodbye"
"One Australian woman is hospitalised every three hours and two more lose their lives each week as a result of family violence. But for some women there is a punishment far more enduring than injury or their own death.
Look What You Made Me Do is a timely exploration of the evil inflicted by vengeful fathers who have killed their own children simply to punish partners for ending unrewarding, often abusive relationships.
Drawing on her own experience as a court reporter, award-winning crime writer Megan Norris examines the revenge murders of eighteen children to shine a light on the ultimate act of family violence and the shattering legacy of grief such crimes have on surviving mothers.
From the 2018 execution-style shooting murders of Sydney teenagers, Jack and Jennifer Edwards whose angry dad was granted a licence to kill despite his long-standing history of domestic violence – to the premeditated murders of Brisbane mum, Hannah Clarke and her three children whose car was torched by her vengeful ex – this book shows it is not only women who are at risk when family violence turns deadly.
‘Megan Norris has been a trailblazer. The events so accurately described in this book provide powerful insights into widespread patterns of power and control, and the profound harms that can result.’ DR DEBBIE KIRKWOOD, Author of Just Say Goodbye
‘It’s through sharing these stories that we can lift the sense of shame that clouds victim-survivors, and debunk the myths around intimacy, power and control... We must continue to create change and push for law reform.’ MARK WOOLLEY, Small Steps 4 Hannah"
"Healing the scars of the Bali Bombings – An inspirational story of an Australian mother’s journey back from hell and the enduring love for her children that gave her the will to wage her own war on terrorism.
On Saturday 12th October 2002, Australian nurses, Therese Fox and Bronwyn Cartwright’s idyllic holiday descended into their worst nightmare when they unwittingly found themselves in the midst of a callously orchestrated terrorist attack on two popular Balinese tourist nightspots which claimed the lives of 202 innocent holiday-makers and maimed and injured hundreds more.
Tragically, while Bronwyn, 28, perished in the deadly bomb blast which ripped through Paddy’s Irish Bar in the party precinct of Kuta, her good friend Therese, 29, crawled out of the carnage with such horrific burns that doctors believed she would not survive the flight home, and she was left on the tarmac at Denpasar Airport to die.
Fortunately, the single mum’s anguished pleas to be reunited with her children prompted a last-minute change of heart and on the urgings of a Balinese nurse, she was airlifted onto the last plane back to Darwin.
Back in Australia she was resuscitated and flown to Sydney’s Concord Hospital where burns specialists performed emergency surgery to remove debris and shrapnel from third degree burns covering 90 per cent of her body.
Therese spent the next twelve months defying such odds that hospital staff nicknamed her ‘The Miracle of Bali.’
Now, twenty years after the Al-Qaeda-linked attacks, award-winning journalist and author, Megan Norris, follows the agonising road back to recovery and looks beyond the suffering and life-saving surgeries at the extraordinary courage of an ordinary suburban Aussie mum whose love for her kids has helped heal her scars and given her back her life."
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