Author
The Thorn Birds
Spanning much of the twentieth century, The Thorn Birds follows the Irish-Australian Cleary family after they move from New Zealand to Drogheda, an immense sheep station in New South Wales. Its emotional center is Meggie Cleary’s lifelong bond with Ralph de Bricassart, a Catholic priest divided between love, vocation, and ambition. Around them, births, deaths, inheritances, marriages, disasters, and departures shape several generations. Colleen McCullough combines a family saga, historical fiction, and tragic romance while treating the Australian landscape as a force that tests every human plan. Readers seeking classic romance novels with broad social scope will find a story concerned not only with forbidden love, but also with faith, power, sacrifice, gender, and the consequences of choosing one consuming desire over every competing claim.