Most Popular Books by Colleen McCullough

The first non-fiction work from the author of The Thorn Birds. A portrait of an extraordinary Australian. Roden Cutler, V.C. is the story of Sir Roden Cutler, war hero, diplomat and former Governor of New South Wales. Born in 1916 and educated at Sydney University, he joined the AIF in 1940, serving in Syria and Lebanon. In Syria his courage in capturing enemy positions won him a Victoria Cross and, in another battle, a machine gun injury led to a leg being amputated. After the war he served as a diplomat in Ceylon, Egypt, Pakistan, New York and the Netherlands. He was Australian delegate to the United Nationals General Assembly in 1963 and 1964. In 1966 he returned to Australia to become Governor of New South Wales, a position he held until 1981. Sir Roden Cutler is a widely respected -- and widely loved -- figure whose life encompasses major moments in Australian and international history.

Missy Wright''s mother has been shunned by her family since marrying for love, not money. Now widowed, the women live a quiet existence in genteel poverty. Plain, thin and unforgivably single, it seems Missy''s life is destined to be dreary. But then a stranger arrives in town and opens Missy''s eyes to the possibility of a happy ending.

Carmine and his team of detectives must navigate the competitive world of academic publishing, fraught with politics and prestige. The stakes are high: an amazing art collection, a large inheritance, old and upstanding local families, a gold-digging wife, jealous relatives, and a young couple''s future.

From the author of THE THORN BIRDS and A CREED FOR THE NEW MILLENNIUM, a romantic war novel featuring Sister Honour Langtry, who is in charge of Ward X in a military hospital. When a new patient, Sergeant Michael Wilson arrives, he transforms the ward into a place of emotion, leading to tragedy for the sister, who falls in love.

Roden Cutler''s list of honours is long and impressive, but it is his sole decoration, the Victoria Cross, that marks him as a hero. Over 800,000 men and women served in the Australian armed forces during the Second World War, but only twenty were awarded the V.C. Colleen McCullough vividly shows us the life and times of the young soldier with the dashing good looks, the laconic humour and dislike of pretension who came back from the war determined to continue to support his mother, but, having lost a leg, with no idea how to do so. Yet by the age of 29 he was the Australian High Commissioner to New Zealand. His diplomatic career was to include stints to Ceylon, Egypt during the Suez crisis of 1956, Pakistan and New York. In 1966 he was appointed Governor of New South Wales; during his 15 years in that office he shared with Captain Arthur Phillip and Lachlan Macquarie, he earned his own niche among them as the people''s governor''. Much loved, still remembered as a man equally at home in the company of royalty or trade unionists. His story is embedded in Australian history, and part of it. But it is also the story of a man who pulled himself up by his bootstraps to serve his country with courage and dignity in the face of all obstacles. In an age accustomed to public idols with feet of clay, Roden Cutler is the exception: a man whose integrity is as formidable as his humility is astonishing.

It''s 1960 in Sydney''s Kings Cross. Harriet Purcell leaves her conventional, respectable home and passionless boyfriend and moves into a rooming house. There she finds a life she relishes - excitement, adventure and passion.

This is the story of Sulla''s return from exile, his installation as dictator of Rome and his self-imposed retirement. It witnesses the spectacle of Roman politics involving Pompey, Spartacus and his doomed slave revolts and Caesar''s exploits as a young soldier and advocate.