Fifteen Seconds of Brave

In this intimate and insightful book, Melissa Doyle shares the stories of some of the most resilient people she has ever met, gently drawing out their wisdom, empathy and heartfelt practical advice for anyone who’s going through a difficult time.

When the world stopped turning in 2020, award-winning journalist Melissa Doyle had already been thrown off course by life. She’d just turned fifty, her eldest child had left home to study overseas and her twenty-five-year-long career as a popular presenter at Channel 7 had come to an end.

While lockdowns and closed borders damaged livelihoods, relationships and the nation’s mental health, Melissa found herself reflecting on some of the survivors she’d met during her years reporting from the front lines of triumph and tragedy. Surely these people had clues on how to navigate grief and anxiety?

Revisiting these stories with such extraordinary people, Melissa was struck once more by their hard-won wisdom and their ability not just to survive but to find meaning in their experiences. Having faced the worst that life could throw at them, from childhood trauma to a freak accident to betrayal of the cruellest kind, they now explain how hope can prevail and we can all, as one remarkable little boy put it, find our ‘fifteen seconds of brave’.