Colleen McCullough
Colleen McCullough, a native of Australia, established the department of neurophysiology at the Royal North Shore Hospital in Sydney before working as a researcher at Yale Medical School for ten years. She is the bestselling author of numerous novels, including The Thorn Birds, and lives with her husband on Norfolk Island in the South Pacific.
All Books By Colleen McCullough
Bittersweet
- By: Colleen McCullough
- Narrator: Cat Gould
- Length: 16 hours 0 minutes
- Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
- Publish date: January 01, 2014
- Language: English
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3.47(4089 ratings)
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In her first epic romantic novel since The Thorn Birds, Colleen McCullough weaves a sweeping story of two sets of twins–all trained as nurses but each with her own ambitions–stepping into womanhood in 1920s and ’30s Australia.
Because they are two sets of twins, the four Latimer sisters are as close as can be. Yet these vivacious young women each have their own dreams for themselves: Edda wants to be a doctor, Tufts wants to organize everything, Grace won’t be told what to do, and Kitty wishes to be known for something other than her beauty. They are famous throughout New South Wales for their beauty, wit, and ambition, but as they step into womanhood, they are not enthusiastic about the limited prospects life holds for them.
Together they decide to enroll in a training program for nurses–a new option for women of their time who have previously been largely limited to the role of wives, and preferably mothers. As the Latimer sisters become immersed in hospital life and the demands of their training, they meet people and encounter challenges that spark new maturity and independence. They meet men from all walks of life–local farmers, their professional colleagues, and even men with national roles and reputations–and each sister must make weighty decisions about what she values most. The results are sometimes happy, sometimes heartbreaking, but always … bittersweet.
Rendered with McCullough’s trademark historical accuracy, this dramatic coming-of-age tale is wise in the ways of the human heart, one that will transport readers to a time in history that feels at once exotic and yet not so very distant from our own.
... Read moreCaesar
- By: Colleen McCullough
- Narrator: Michael York
- Length: 6 hours 11 minutes
- Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
- Publish date: January 01, 1997
- Language: English
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4.39(6625 ratings)
It is 54 B.C. Gaius Julius Caesar is sweeping through Gaul. While his victories in the name of Rome are epic, the conservative leaders of the Republic are not pleased — they are terrified. Where will the boundless ambition of Rome’s most brilliant soldier stop? He must be destroyed before he can overthrow the government and install himself as Dictator.
When Cato and the Senate betray him, Caesar resolves to turn his genius against his ungrateful country. Backed by a loyal and skilled army, he marches on Rome. But before reaching his goal, he must contend with Pompey the Great, a formidable adversary who underestimates the renegade Caesar.
These are tumultuous times — for Caesar, who endures personal tragedies even as he wages war; for Pompey, who must wrestle with his fear that his greatness is at an end; for Cicero, whose luminous rhetoric is shattered by threat of violence; and for the citizens of Rome, whose destiny lies in Caesar’s hands.
The fifth novel in Colleen McCullough’s unforgettable Masters of Rome series, Caesar brings to life the passion and genius of an incomparable man.
Caesar’s Women
- By: Colleen McCullough
- Narrator: Michael York
- Length: 5 hours 50 minutes
- Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
- Publish date: January 01, 1996
- Language: English
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4.28(6057 ratings)
In the blockbuster tradition of The First Man in Rome — Colleen Mccullough’s monumental Masters of Rome series continues.
The man behind the legend…the women behind the man.
Villain or hero? Debated for centuries, the volcanic soul of Julius Caesar comes dramatically to life in the new masterpiece of historical fiction from the #1 bestselling author of The Thorn Birds.
In this sweeping saga, McCullough traces Caesar’s rise to prominence in his world, beginning with his triumphant entry into a new battlefield — the Roman Forum, where wars are waged with words and schemes, and where today’s ally may be tomorrow’s foe. Caesar’s victories are not limited to the political arena, however; he also conquers Rome’s noblewomen, including the powerful and vindictive Servilia, mother of a youth called Brutus. Yet the one thing he never gives to any of the women who love him or want him is himself — to Caesar, love is just another weapon in his political arsenal.
Epic in scope, razor-sharp in detail, Caesar’s Women paints an indelible portrait of a man willing to seize any means of moving toward his ultimate goal — to be the greatest of all Rome’s First Men, the leader of a world that echoes our own too closely for comfort.
Fortune’s Favorite
- By: Colleen McCullough
- Narrator: Michael York
- Length: 5 hours 59 minutes
- Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
- Publish date: January 01, 1993
- Language: English
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4.38(6763 ratings)
Return to Ancient Rome – where politics, ambition, and greed collide in the fortunes of two fiercely powerful men: Lucius Cornelius Sulla, the great general who returns from exile to be installed as dictator, and then stuns Rome with his startling self-imposed retirement; and Pompey, the young scion of an enormously powerful rural family, who determines to leapfrog over the traditional milestones to Roman political pre-eminence by any means necessary.
Passionate, ambitious, and larger than life, these men play out their fortunes against rebellious elements in Spain, dangerous rumblings in the East and the doomed slave revolt of the tragic figure Spartacus. But a greater threat to their place in history awaits – the fiery young warrior Julius Caesar, exploding now into manhood, his priest’s robe shed in a most surprising manner. A newcomer to military glory and the Senate, he earns a formidable reputation as diplomat, lawyer and politician.
In fascinating and unrivaled grandeur, Fortune’s Favorites sows the seeds of Caesar’s terrible rivalry with Pompey, and sets into motion the events which will finally enable him to tower over history for all time.
Grass Crown
- By: Colleen McCullough
- Narrator: F. Murray Abraham
- Length: 5 hours 54 minutes
- Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
- Publish date: January 01, 1991
- Language: English
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4.32(10511 ratings)
From the author of the captivating bestseller
THE FIRST MAN IN ROME…
the timeless saga of power, passion
and conflict of Ancient Rome continues…
The magnificent glory of Republican Rome is threatened when a struggle for power erupts among the men who shaped its hard-won peace. At its center are two extraordinary leaders: Gaius Marius, the general who saved Rome from Barbarian invasions, desperately trying to extend his reign for a prophesied and unprecedented seventh term as Consul; and Lucius Cornelius Sulla, once Marius’ most trusted right-hand man, now a dangerous rival hungry for his own taste of political success.
As the two men battle for position, they are surrounded by a new generation of statesman, soldiers and lovers, from Senate intriguers and their ambitious wives to the child of destiny, Gaius Julius Caesar.
An absorbing tale of a Republic fighting for its survival in a world of treachery, barbarism and never-ending war, The Grass Crown is a remarkable entry in Colleen McCullough’s brilliant and unprecedented series on the rise and fall of the world’s greatest civilization.
Morgan’s Run
- By: Colleen McCullough
- Narrator: Tim Curry
- Length: 6 hours 49 minutes
- Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
- Publish date: January 01, 2019
- Language: English
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3.98(3800 ratings)
Colleen McCullough captivated millions with her beloved worldwide bestseller The Thorn Birds. Now she takes readers to the birth of modern Australia with a breathtaking saga brimming with drama, history, and passion.
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 eighteenth-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.
Naked Cruelty
- By: Colleen McCullough
- Narrator: Charles Leggett
- Length: 12 hours 50 minutes
- Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
- Publish date: January 01, 2010
- Language: English
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3.41(457 ratings)
The bestselling author of The Thorn Birds once again pits Captain Carmine Delmonico against a dangerous villain and a difficult case. Without the help of modern forensic tools, Captain Carmine Delmonico and his trusted detectives must restore peace to their small university town. It’s 1968, and amid the new era of paranoia, Delmonico faces new challenges. Sex and greed dominate two new murder cases–and a series of rapes seems to escalate to murder. For Carmine, it seems to be a case with no clues. And it comes as the Holloman Police Department is in turmoil: a lieutenant is out of his depth, a sergeant is out of control, and into this mix comes the beautiful, ruthlessly ambitious new trainee, Helen McIntosh, daughter of the influential president of Chubb University. As the killer makes his plans, Carmine and his team must use every resource at their disposal–including a team of highly motivated local vigilantes…
... Read moreOn, Off
- By: Colleen McCullough
- Narrator: Lewis Grenville
- Length: 12 hours 39 minutes
- Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
- Publish date: January 01, 2008
- Language: English
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3.54(1374 ratings)
In 1965, the dogged Lieutenant Carmine Delmonico is assigned to solve what appears to be a single murder. Part of a young woman’s body has turned up at one of the world’s leading neurological research centers, but it’s not long before Delmonico realizes he’s hunting a serial killer. All the center’s members are hiding secrets Delmonico must unearth: what does Professor Robert Smith do in his basement? Why doesn’t Dr. Walter Polonski’s wife know about his cabin in the woods? As the murders mount, Delmonico joins with the center’s tough female business manager to dig up the dirt on everyone.
... Read moreSins of the Flesh
- By: Colleen McCullough
- Narrator: Mark Peckham
- Length: 10 hours 21 minutes
- Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
- Publish date: January 01, 2013
- Language: English
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3.36(311 ratings)
In the next installment of this “compelling, passionate, and gritty” (Daily Mail, London) suspense series, police captain Carmine Delmonico is on the trail of not one but two killers.
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. After connecting the victims to four other bodies, Sergeant Delia Carstairs and Lieutenant Abe Goldberg realize that Holloman has a psychopathic killer on the loose. Luckily, Carmine decides to come back from vacation early.
Carmine’s team begins to circle a trio of eccentrics, who readily admit to knowing all the victims, but their stories keep changing. They share family ties, painful memories, and a dark past. One of them is a new friend of Sergeant Carstairs, as is the respected head of the mental hospital, who has been doing groundbreaking work rehabilitating one very difficult patient who is now her trusted assistant. When another vicious murder rocks Holloman, Carmine faces the revelation that two killers are at large with completely different modus operandi, even as he barely escapes being next in the body count. Suddenly, the summer isn’t so sleepy.
A riveting mystery series by an author of astounding range and skill, Colleen McCullough’s Carmine Delmonico books take you back to an age of classic police work, before DNA analysis and computers. Sins of the Flesh is her finest work yet, pitting her beloved hero against every cop’s nightmare scenario in a plot that turns on the sort of science that McCullough herself knows so well.
... Read moreThe First Man in Rome
- By: Colleen McCullough
- Narrator: David Ogden Stiers
- Length: 6 hours 2 minutes
- Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
- Publish date: January 01, 1990
- Language: English
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4.12(19604 ratings)
“The First Man in Rome was not the best man: he was the First among other men who were his equals…To be the First Man in Rome was something far better than kingship…”
In the first century B.C. at the height of the Roman Republic, two men set their sights on becoming the First Man – the Roman more respected than any other. Marius, a heroic man of strength and means, lacks the noble blood to contend for the First Man, but overcomes his common status when he marries into the patrician house of Caesar. Sulla, a pleasure-seeking aristocrat without money of his own, is transformed by his ambitions into a fierce and daring warrior. Together the two men will shape history as they are thrust into a raging storm – engaging in deadly political contests and waging far-off wars for a state battling to hold on to its enormous power.
Rich with unforgettable characters and unerring historical accuracy, The First Man in Rome is a vivid tale of power, treachery, and a great Republic hurtling towards civil war…
The Independence of Miss Mary Bennet
- By: Colleen McCullough
- Narrator: Jen Taylor
- Length: 13 hours 39 minutes
- Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
- Publish date: January 01, 2009
- Language: English
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2.93(2217 ratings)
Lizzy Bennet married Mr. Darcy, Jane Bennet married Mr. Bingley–but what became of the middle daughter, Mary? Readers of Pride and Prejudice will remember that there were five Bennet sisters. Now, twenty years on, Jane has a happy marriage and large family; Lizzy and Mr. Darcy now have a formidable social reputation; Lydia has a reputation of quite another kind; Kitty is much in demand in London’s parlors and ballrooms; but what of Mary? Mary is quietly celebrating her independence, having nursed her ailing mother for many years. She decides to write a book to bring the plight of the poor to everyone’s attention. But with more resolve than experience as she sets out to travel around the country, it’s not only her family who are concerned about her.
... Read moreThe October Horse
- By: Colleen McCullough
- Narrator: Graeme Malcolm
- Length: 6 hours 30 minutes
- Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
- Publish date: January 01, 2019
- Language: English
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4.32(4799 ratings)
With her renowned storytelling gifts in full force, Colleen McCullough delivers a breathtaking novel that proves once again that she is the top historical novelist of our time.
Grand in scope and vivid in detail, McCullough’s gripping narrative thrusts readers headlong into the complex and fascinating world of Rome in the tumultuous last days of the Republic. At the height of his power, Gaius Julius Caesar becomes embroiled in a civil war in Egypt, where he finds himself enraptured by Cleopatra, the nation’s golden-eyed queen. To do his duty as a Roman, however, he must forsake his love and return to the capital to rule.
Though Caesar’s grip on power seems unshakable, the political landscape is treacherous–the returning hero has no obvious successor, and his legacy seems to be the prize for any man with the courage and cunning to fell Rome’s laurelled leader. Caesar’s jealous enemies masquerade as friends and scheme to oust the autocrat from power and restore true republican government to Rome. But as the plot races to its dramatic conclusion, it becomes clear that with the stakes this high, no alliance is sacred and no motives are pure.
The Prodigal Son
- By: Colleen McCullough
- Narrator: Charles Leggett
- Length: 12 hours 8 minutes
- Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
- Publish date: January 01, 2012
- Language: English
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3.37(323 ratings)
When Chubb University biochemist Millie Hunter notices that a deadly neurotoxin is missing from her laboratory refrigerator, she immediately goes to her father, who is also CT’s Chief Medical Examiner. They both know that the situation is grave; the poison shuts down the nervous system and is virtually impossible to stop. Soon, as bodies pile up and the coroner keeps pointing to the neurotoxin, Captain Carmine Delmonico must find the killer fast. Helped by his exotic and brilliant colleague Delia and his constant wife Desdemona (an excellent cook), Delmonico follows the trail no matter how close to home it may lead.
... Read moreThe Touch
- By: Colleen McCullough
- Narrator: Jenny Sterlin
- Length: 6 hours 43 minutes
- Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
- Publish date: January 01, 2003
- Language: English
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3.98(2300 ratings)
Not since The Thorn Birds has Colleen McCullough written a novel of such broad appeal about a family and the Australian experience as The Touch.
At its center is Alexander Kinross, remembered as a young man in his native Scotland only as a shiftless boilermaker’s apprentice and a 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‚Äôs richest gold mine.
Isolated in Alexander’s great house, with no company save Chinese servants, Elizabeth finds that the intimacies of marriage do not prompt her husband to enlighten her about his past life‚Äîor even his present one. She has no idea that he still has a mistress, the sensual, tough, outspoken Ruby Costevan, whom Alexander has established in his town, nor that he has also made Ruby a partner in his company, rapidly expanding its interests far beyond gold. Ruby has a son, Lee, whose father is the head of the beleaguered Chinese community; the boy becomes dear to Alexander, who fosters his education as a gentleman.
Captured by the very different natures of Elizabeth and Ruby, Alexander resolves to have both of them. Why should he not? He has the fabled ”Midas Touch”—a combination of curiosity, boldness, and intelligence that he applies to every situation, and which fails him only when it comes to these two women.
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 is to present 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 boy as a possible heir to his empire, unaware that by keeping Lee with him, he is courting disaster.
The stories of the lives of Alexander, Elizabeth, and Ruby are intermingled with those of a rich cast of characters, and, after many twists and turns, come to a stunning and shocking climax. Like The Thorn Birds, Colleen McCullough’s new novel is at once a love story and a family saga, replete with tragedy, pathos, history, and passion. As few other novelists can, she conveys a sense of place: the desperate need of her characters, men and women, rootless in a strange land, to create new beginnings.
Too Many Murders
- By: Colleen McCullough
- Narrator: Charles Leggett
- Length: 14 hours 26 minutes
- Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
- Publish date: January 01, 2010
- Language: English
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3.44(769 ratings)
It’s a beautiful spring day in the little city of Holloman, Connecticut. The year is 1967, and the world teeters on the brink of nuclear holocaust as the Cold War goes relentlessly on. But Holloman has other things to worry about–on April 3, 1967, twelve murders have taken place on one day. Suddenly Captain Carmine Delmonico, chief of detectives, has other, more important matters to occupy him than finding a satisfactory name for his infant son. With his cohorts Abe Goldberg and Corey Marshall giving him unfailing support, Carmine embarks on what looks like an insoluble case.
... Read more