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The First Time He Hit Her
- The Murder of Tara Costigan
- Narrated by: Sylvie de Crespigny
- Length: 9 hrs and 10 mins
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The First Time He Hit Her
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Publisher's Summary
For fans of true crime and books such as See What You Made Me Do, a shocking and movingly told portrait of the murder of suburban mum Tara Costigan and an examination of why domestic violence affects us all.
Tara Costigan was the woman next door. A hard worker. Quick to laugh and easy to like. She was happy, confident, strong. A woman who always looked after herself and her kids. Close with her family and her friends, she was much loved. Then, in 2013, she met Marcus Rappel. A local tradie, he was charming and sincere, they dated and fell in love. That should have been the end of a happy-ever-after story. But for Tara, it was much uglier. And for her family it would be devastating.
A year later, Tara was pregnant to Marcus. Her family had been worried for a while, but Tara didn't tell anyone how Marcus' jealousy was souring the relationship. She tried to keep it quiet. Despite everything, she never imagined he would be physically violent - he would never hurt her.
Tara was wrong. One fine day, the last day of summer in 2015, she was holding their newborn baby in her arms when he attacked her with an axe. Her murder seemed to come out of the blue. But as this extraordinary, often shocking audiobook reveals, it did not.
The First Time He Hit Her is an attempt to understand why dozens of women are murdered each year by men who profess to love them.
What listeners say about The First Time He Hit Her
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Amazon Customer
- 27-07-2020
A must read
Brilliant piece of writing by Heidi Lemon. The story is absolutely heartbreaking but so well depicted from a variety of angles I felt were important to examine as an outsider. While listening to the audio version of the story, I felt like I was there at times and was kept awake for many nights after it. I highly recommend this book.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Anonymous User
- 05-08-2022
Utterly tragic, brilliantly written
Brilliantly written for such a sad, sad story. Completely avoidable. Those poor children, and the family...but what a remarkable family. The kind of kinship a lot of us envy. My heart goes out to them all
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- Niroshe Amarasekera
- 19-10-2020
sad truth
well written
hard to listen to, moving, lots of emotions, captured well
thank you for sharing
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- Anonymous User
- 13-07-2021
Sad story
I wanted to read this book after hearing about it on the Australian True Crime podcast. Having grown up in Canberra my whole life, I remember hearing this on the news and wanted to hear the story. It was heartbreaking, a tragic murder. The author told the story very informally but I believe it made it easier to hear the true story from the family.
It is a very sad book and shocking to hear about the horrific murder of Tara Costigan but it is definitely worth the read.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- Anonymous User
- 05-10-2021
Incredible
Heidi, this was captivating from start to finish. I don’t think you could have told Taras story better even though it’s sad you had to. Brilliant writing of a tragic story.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- Claudia Ioannou
- 21-01-2023
Excellent book
Both, story telling and narrator are excellent. This book highlights the urgent changes that society as a whole has to make in order to eliminate violence from happening. Violence towards women is like a cancer and it has spread and does not discriminate skin color, language, culture nor social status. It needs to be addressed from an early age as DV is continuing inter generational. I recommend this book.
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- Sandra Allison
- 30-07-2023
I want to tell everyone to read this
This stirred something in me, memories. I found the story so well written and the reviews commenting on Heidi interweaving her own story with Tara in a negative way did not understand what she was telling us. If she hadn’t I may have missed those “Q”s, that made me think back. I am now so thankful I did call the police on behalf of a friend when I got her distraught call, not unusual except the day before other people were getting weird paranoia calls from “him” and that made me act. After listening to this story I am so thankful I did. This such an important story to be told, Heidi wrote in the most amazing way and Sylvie’s narration on audible drew me in. How my heart aches for the Costigan family and for Tara for the life she did not get to live and for her children.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- Annabelle
- 19-07-2020
Tragic Australian Domestic Abuse story
Unfortunately, Tara has been added to list of murdered women in Australia.
Thank you for this book Heidi, highlighting how abuse can escalate and break down some myths of Domestic Abuse and what happens behind closed doors. Well researched, narrated and written. My heart breaks for her family.
There must be a change in the system for obtaining DVO’s - putting women on the stand in front of Magistrates for protection and restraint from violence when women fear for their life and lives of their family, Is just unnecessary trauma at a very stressful time, makes my blood boil and I’ve had first hand experience.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- Tee
- 11-10-2020
Saving one family at a time
A heart wrenching story, told beautifully with love and respect by Heidi. Some parts of this book are hard to listen too, but we as a nation need to hear this story, to protect the ones we love. So to the Costigan family and Heidi we Thankyou.
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- Shaza
- 31-01-2024
All the true information
Very well read, sorry it had to end, the loved it from start to finish, but very sad.
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