Most Popular Books by Colleen McCullough

Now, 25 years after it first took the world by storm, Colleen McCullough''s sweeping family saga of dreams, titanic struggles, dark passions, and forbidden love in the Australian Outback returns to enthrall a new generation. As powerful, moving, and unforgettable as when it originally appeared, it remains a monumental literary achievement—a landmark novel to be read . . . and read again!

Proving once again that she is a master of suspense, bestselling author Colleen McCullough returns with a riveting sequel to On, Off. The year is 1967, and the world teeters on the brink of nuclear holocaust as the Cold War goes relentlessly on. On a beautiful spring day in the little city of Holloman, Connecticut, home to prestigious Chubb University and armaments giant Cornucopia, chief of detectives Captain Carmine Delmonico has more pressing concerns than finding a name for his infant son: twelve murders have taken place in one day, and Delmonico is drawn into a gruesome web of secrets and lies. Supported by his detective sergeants Abe Goldberg and Corey Marshall and new team member the meticulous Delia Carstairs, Delmonico embarks on what looks like an unsolvable mystery. All the murders are different and they all seem unconnected. Are they dealing with one killer, or many? How is the murder of Dee-Dee Hall, a local prostitute, related to the deaths of a mother and her disabled child? How is Chubb student Evan Pugh connected to Desmond Skeps, head of Cornucopia? And as if twelve murders were not enough, Carmine soon finds himself pitted against the mysterious Ulysses, a spy giving Cornucopia''s armaments secrets to the Russians. Are the murders and espionage different cases, or are they somehow linked? When FBI special agent Ted Kelly makes himself part of the investigation, it appears the stakes are far higher than anyone had imagined, and murder is only one part of the puzzle in the set of crimes that has sent Holloman into a panic. As the overtaxed police force contends with small town politics, academic rivalry and corporate greed, the death toll mounts, and Carmine and his team discover that the answers are not what they seem -- but then, are they ever?

From the internationally bestselling author of The Thorn Birds comes a breathtaking saga brimming with drama, history, and passion set in 18th-century Australia, following a wrongfully convicted man whose courage, resilience, and hope help forge a new life on the brutal colonial frontier. Following the disappearance of his only son and the death of his beloved wife, Richard Morgan is falsely imprisoned and exiled to the penal colonies of 18th-century Australia. His life is shattered but Morgan refuses to surrender, overcoming all obstacles to find unexpected contentment and happiness in the harsh early days of Australia''s settlement. From England’s shores to Botany Bay and the rugged frontier of a hostile new world, Morgan’s Run is the epic tale of love lost and found, and the man whose strength and character helped settle a country and define its future.

Everyone knows the story of Elizabeth and Jane Bennet in Pride and Prejudice. But what about their sister Mary? At the conclusion of Jane Austen''s classic novel, Mary, bookish, awkward, and by all accounts, unmarriageable, is sentenced to a dull, provincial existence in the backwaters of Britain. Now, master storyteller Colleen McCullough rescues Mary from her dreary fate with The Independence of Miss Mary Bennet, a page-turning sequel set twenty years after Austen''s novel closes. The story begins as the neglected Bennet sister is released from the stultifying duty of caring for her insufferable mother. Though many would call a woman of Mary''s age a spinster, she has blossomed into a beauty to rival that of her famed sisters. Her violet eyes and perfect figure bewitch the eligible men in the neighborhood, but though her family urges her to marry, romance and frippery hold no attraction. Instead, she is determined to set off on an adventure of her own. Fired with zeal by the newspaper letters of the mysterious Argus, she resolves to publish a book about the plight of England''s poor. Plunging from one predicament into another, Mary finds herself stumbling closer to long-buried secrets, unanticipated dangers, and unlooked-for romance. Meanwhile, the other dearly loved characters of Pride and Prejudice fret about the missing Mary while they contend with difficulties of their own. Darcy''s political ambitions consume his ardor, and he bothers with Elizabeth only when the impropriety of her family seems to threaten his career. Lydia, wild and charming as ever, drinks and philanders her way into dire straits; Kitty, a young widow of means, occupies herself with gossip and shopping; and Jane, naïve and trusting as ever, spends her days ministering to her crop of boys and her adoring, if not entirely faithful, husband. Yet, with the shadowy and mysterious figure of DarcyÕs right-hand man, Ned Skinner, lurking at every corner, it is clear that all is not what it seems at idyllic Pemberley. As the many threads of McCulloughÕs masterful plot come together, shocking truths are revealed, love, both old and new, is tested, and all learn the value of true independence in a novel for every woman who has wanted to leave her mark on the world.

America in 1968 is in turmoil and the leafy Holloman, Connecticut, suburb of Carew is being silently terrorized by a series of vicious and systematic rapes. When finally one victim finds the courage to speak out and go to the police, the rapist escalates to murder. For Captain Carmine Delmonico, it seems to be a case with no clues.

With extraordinary narrative power, New York Times bestselling author Colleen McCullough sweeps the reader into a whirlpool of pageantry and passion, bringing to vivid life the most glorious epoch in human history. When the world cowered before the legions of Rome, two extraordinary men dreamed of personal glory: the military genius and wealthy rural "upstart" Marius, and Sulla, penniless and debauched but of aristocratic birth. Men of exceptional vision, courage, cunning, and ruthless ambition, separately they faced the insurmountable opposition of powerful, vindictive foes. Yet allied they could answer the treachery of rivals, lovers, enemy generals, and senatorial vipers with intricate and merciless machinations of their own—to achieve in the end a bloody and splendid foretold destiny . . . and win the most coveted honor the Republic could bestow.

New York Times bestselling author Colleen McCullough re-creates an extraordinary epoch before the mighty Republic belonged to Julius Caesar—when Rome''s noblewomen were his greatest conquest. His victories were legend—in battle and bedchamber alike. Love was a political weapon he wielded cunningly and ruthlessly in his private war against enemies in the forum. Genius, general, patrician, Gaius Julius Caesar was history. His wives bought him influence. He sacrificed his beloved daughter on the altar of ambition. He burned for the cold-hearted mistress he could never dare trust. Caesar''s women all knew—and feared—his power. He adored them, used them, destroyed them on his irresistible rise to prominence. And one of them would seal his fate.

Mary Horton is content with her comfortable, solitary existence...until she meets Tim. A beautiful young man with the mind of a child--a gentle outcast in a cruel, unbending world--he illuminates the darkness of Mary''s days with his boyish innocence. And he will shatter the lonely, middle-aged spinster''s respectable, ordered life with a forbidden promise of a very special love.

From the bestselling author of The Thorn Birds comes a multi-generational saga about the interlocked destinies of a Scots-Australian family and a Chinese family from the 1860s through the turn of the century. In his native Scotland, Alexander Kinross was once dismissed as a shiftless boilermaker’s apprentice and godless rebel. But when, years later, he writes from Australia to summon his bride, his Scottish relatives quickly realize that he has made a fortune in the goldfields and is now a man to be reckoned with. Arriving in Sydney after a difficult voyage, the sixteen-year-old Elizabeth Drummond meets her husband-to-be and discovers to her dismay that he frightens and repels her. Offered no choice, she marries him and is whisked at once across a wild, uninhabited countryside to Alexander''s own town, named Kinross after himself. In the crags above it lies the world’s richest gold mine. Isolated in Alexander’s grand home in the remote Australian wilderness, Elizabeth soon realizes how little she knows about her husband. She has no idea that Alexander is still deeply entangled with Ruby Costevan, his passionate, outspoken mistress and business partner whose son, Lee, becomes dear to Alexander. Although Ruby loves Alexander desperately, Elizabeth does not. Elizabeth bears him two daughters: the brilliant Nell, so much like her father; and the beautiful, haunting Anna, who presents her father with a torment out of which for once he cannot buy his way. Thwarted in his desire for a son, Alexander turns to Ruby’s son as a possible heir to his empire, unaware that by keeping Lee with him, he is courting disaster. Set against the rugged landscape of a rapidly changing Australia, The Touch is a sweeping family saga of passion, tragedy, history, and the desperate need to create new beginnings.

Tomorrow''s America is a cold and ravaged place, a nation devastated by despair and enduring winter. In a small New England city, senior government official Dr. Judith Carriol finds the man she has been seeking: a deliverer of hope in a hopeless time who can revive the dreams of a shattered people; a magnetic, compassionate idealist whom Judith can mold, manipulate and carry to undreamed-of heights; a healer who must ultimately face damnation through the destructive power of love.

"It''s August 1969 in the sleepy college town of Holloman, Connecticut, and police Captain Carmine Delmonico is away on vacation. Back at home, first one, then two anonymous male corpses turn up--emaciated and emasculated. Sergeant Delia Carstairs and Lieutenant Abe Goldberg connect the victims to four other bodies, and suddenly they realize Holloman has a psychopathetic killer on the loose. Luckily Carmine decides to come back from vacation early. Carmine''s team begins to circle a trio of eccentrics living on a beautiful estate; they readily admit to knowing all the victims, but their stories keep changing. They share a dark past, family ties, and painful memories. One of them is a woman who has recently become a friend of Delia''s, along with another woman who is the respected head of the insane asylum. She has done groundbreaking work rehabilitating one very difficult patient who is now her most trusted assistant. The three women met while rescuing a cat from a tree, and now they find they share a love of intelligent conversation and their enjoyment of living the single life. When a gas station attendant is viciously murdered, and then Carmine barely escapes being next in the body count, it becomes apparent that Holloman has two killers at large with two completely different modus operandi. Suddenly the summer isn''t so sleepy any more"--

Captain Carmine Delmonico must find a brilliant killer hiding out in the prestigious and cutthroat world of academia.

In this final novel in the Roman series, McCullough turns her attention to the legendary romance of Antony and Cleopatra.

New York Times bestselling author Colleen McCullough returns us to an age of magnificent triumphs, volcanic passions, and barbaric cruelties. Throughout the Western world, great kingdoms have fallen and despots lay crushed beneath the heels of Rome''s advancing legions. But now internal rebellion threatens the stability of the mighty Republic. An aging, ailing Gaius Marius, heralded conqueror of Germany and Numidia, longs for that which was prophesied many years before: an unprecedented seventh consulship of Rome. It is a prize to be won only through treachery and with blood, pitting Marius against a new generation of assassins, power-seekers, and Senate intriguers—and setting him at odds with the ambitious, tormented Lucius Cornelius Sulla, once Marius''s most trusted right-hand man, now his most dangerous rival.

With incomparable storytelling skill, New York Times bestselling author Colleen McCullough brings Rome alive in all her majesty—and illuminates the world of those favored by the gods at birth. In a time of cataclysmic upheaval, a bold new generation of Romans vied for greatness amid the disintegrating remnants of their beloved Republic. They were the chosen...and the cursed—blessed with wealth and privilege yet burdened by the dictates of destiny in a savage struggle for power that would leave countless numbers crushed and destroyed. But there was one who would tower above them all—a brilliant and beautiful boy whose ambition was unparalleled, whose love was legend, and whose glory was Rome''s: a boy they would one day call "Caesar."

With her extraordinary knowledge of Roman history, McCullough brings Caesar to life as nobody has ever done before and surrounds him with an enormous, vivid cast of historical characters.