The Touch
a powerful, sweeping family saga from the international bestselling author of The Thorn Birds
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4.3 • 24 Ratings
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- £3.99
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- £3.99
Publisher Description
Let international bestselling author Colleen McCullough sweep you away with this enthralling, evocative and emotional saga of one woman's quest to come to terms with a new life. If you like Victoria Hislop, Lucinda Riley and Fiona Valpy, you'll love this!
'Fast-moving and immensely readable... Back to the open spaces, merciless climate and sheer pioneering stance of the magical THE THORN BIRDS, this book is a page turner from start to finish' -- Maeve Binchy
'A compelling, passionate and gritty saga that was well worth the wait' -- She
'A powerful saga' -- Mirror
'Absorbing' -- Sunday Telegraph
'I could put this book down. I was consumed with it' -- ***** Reader review
'This book is utterly compelling and quite simply, I loved it. I wanted to finish it, but, didn't want it to end. Beautifully written, descriptive passages. A truly Master author. Thank you' -- ***** Reader review
'One of the best reads I've had in years' -- ***** Reader review
'Thoroughly loved this book, I was hooked from the first page!' -- ***** Reader review
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Alexander Kinross is remembered in his native Scotland only as a shiftless boilermaker's apprentice. But when he writes from Australia to summon his bride, his relatives realize he is now a man to be reckoned with.
Arriving in Sydney after a difficult voyage, sixteen-year-old Elizabeth Drummond meets her husband-to-be and discovers that he frightens and repels her.
Isolated in Alexander's great house, Elizabeth finds that marriage does not prompt her husband to enlighten her about his past life - nor his present one, in which his mistress, the sensuous, tough, outspoken Ruby Costevan, still plays a part...
Will she be able to forge a happy new life in this new world?
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
After last year's The October Horse, the final installment in her series set in ancient Rome, McCullough returns to her native Australia to chronicle the adventures of Scotsman Alex Kinross, a headstrong and handsome former boilermaker's apprentice in Glasgow, now rich and the founder of an eponymous town in New South Wales. It is the late 19th century, and Alex, who has settled in Australia after finding gold both in America and Down Under, can find no suitable bride, so he sends to Scotland for one. Elizabeth, the backward 16-year-old beauty he marries, takes an instant dislike to him: he's no paragon of sensitivity; he bears an unfortunate resemblance to Satan; and neither his brilliance, his money or his influence can persuade her to love him. Elizabeth bears him two daughters she almost dies giving birth to the second and forges a deep friendship with the redoubtable Ruby Costevan, a former madam and Alex's longtime mistress. But poor Elizabeth just can't be happy, until she meets Ruby's half-Chinese son, Lee. Lee returns Elizabeth's regard tenfold, but because he's as upstanding as he is beautiful, he makes himself scarce to avoid upsetting Elizabeth or Alex, whom he loves. When he can bear it no longer, Lee decides Alexander must be told but at what price? Frontier speculation, domestic strife, industrialization, a terrible rape and a brutal murder: all these mold and buffet the Kinross clan until a final, tragic act of generosity promises to end the pain. Though they are frequently at the mercy of the novel's complex plot, McCullough's characters win sympathy with their spirited striving for love and honor.
