Would you squeeze your way into a shoulder-width, pitch-dark stormwater drain to rescue a kid as it flooded? Would you knowingly cop a 20,000 volt electric shock to save a friend and his child? Would you swim out from the beach to rescue a man bitten by a five-metre white pointer, while the shark is still circling him? Would you run into the carnage of a burning Bali nightclub to save people when anyone who can still walk is running the other way?

These are decisions made in a split-second by ordinary people placed in extraordinary circumstances. Yet those decisions can – and usually do – have an impact that lasts a lifetime. So what happens to these ordinary heroes once the newspaper headlines have disappeared and the medal-award ceremony is a distant memory? Mark Whittaker, Walkley-Award winning journalist and author, has written a unique account that follows men and women in amazing acts of bravery – and then the long aftermath as they deal with an array of issues – from guilt to post-traumatic stress – that were the furthest things from their minds when they made that split-second decision to risk their own life for someone else's.

Brave is, in every sense of the word, extraordinary – both in its approach, the people it describes and honours, and in the effect it has on the reader. It is compelling, complex, heart-breaking and uplifting.