In the rugged Australian Outback, three generations of Clearys live through joy and sadness, bitter defeat and magnificent triumph – driven by their dreams, sustained by remarkable strength of character... and torn by dark passions, violence and a scandalous family legacy of forbidden love.
It is a poignant love story, a powerful epic of struggle and sacrifice, a celebration of individuality and spirit. Most of all, it is the story of the Clearys' only daughter, Meggie, who can never possess the man she so desperately adores – Ralph de Bricassart. Ralph will rise from parish priest to the inner circles of the Vatican... but his passion for Meggie will follow him all the days of his life.
Head of Zeus * Fiction
28 Mar 2013 * 688pp * £4.99 * 9781781852514
REVIEWS
'One of the biggest-selling, most widely read books in the history of fiction'
Observer
'One of those books that will be rad as long as women love, and men care'
Daily Mirror
'I simply could not put it down. If it hadn't been wrenched from me at mealtimes, I'd have starved'
Daily Mail
Author

Colleen McCullough was born in New South Wales in 1937. A neuroscientist by training, she worked in hospitals in Sydney, London and Yale. By night, she wrote – and her second novel, The Thorn Birds (1977), became a global bestseller. She published 25 novels, ranging from love stories to crime fiction, including the monumental, seven-volume Masters of Rome historical fiction series.