The Thorn Birds by Colleen McCullough

A family saga of ambition and forbidden love

Good Condition - No dust jacket. Boards show light scuffing, small marks and minor edge and corner wear. Page edges are lightly spotted. Text page appears clean.

The Cleary family’s move from New Zealand to the vast Australian sheep station of Drogheda opens a new chapter in lives already shaped by hardship, loyalty and unequal expectations. At the centre of the story is Meggie, whose attachment to the charismatic priest Ralph de Bricassart grows into a love constrained by faith and ambition. Around their relationship, generations struggle with work, land, grief and the demands of family, while the harsh beauty of the Australian setting gives their choices an enduring scale. Spanning much of the twentieth century, Colleen McCullough’s novel follows the consequences of desires that cannot easily be fulfilled or abandoned. It is a sweeping story of sacrifice, inheritance and the tension between the lives people pursue and the people they cannot forget.