Flamingos Aren’t Born Pink

My family's story of healing, hope and living life in colour – a stunningly moving and uplifting memoir of love, loss and transformation, and navigating unimaginable heartbreak through parenting, work and life by the Brisbane media star and 35-year radio veteran.

In the wild, flamingos transform to their vibrant pink from the environment around them – a process of startling change and becoming that Robin Bailey has been through herself. Robin's world fell apart when her husband and father of their three boys, Tony Smart, died by suicide, and she was left to parent alone through her grief in the most public of ways, on commercial radio. Years later, she found deep happiness again with radio executive Sean Pickwell, only for him to die from an aggressive cancer just eleven months after their wedding.

But Robin's transformation through the great loves and losses of her life has only made her stronger, more vibrant and a more loving and capable woman and mother. Robin's honest, brave storytelling holds nothing back – from her sense of guilt at Tony's suicide, the terrible impact it had on their young boys Fin, Lewin and Piper, the fallout with work, family and more, and the saving grace of falling in love with Sean – and the heartbreaking journey they all made through his death from liver cancer.

Robin's story grapples with the darkness of her experience but it's also about joy, love, hope, and a family, forged in the fire of grief to become stronger, more vibrant and loving humans – colourful and proud. Her powerful, moving story is filled deep insights into grieving, parenting, working and living, all told with verve and transparency, including how each of her sons traversed their own journeys through grief, from anger, sorrow and acceptance and into the light of love and hope.