She had a duty here. How many people were equipped to do what she could do effortlessly? How many had the training, the knowledge, the inborn skill? For every mental nurse who had the stamina to last the three-year training period, ten didn’t last. She had the stamina. And she had the love. This wasn’t just a job—her heart was in it, fathoms deep in it! This was what she truly wanted. Her duty lay here among those the world had forgotten, or couldn’t use, or sometimes just plain couldn’t bear to look at.
Nurse Langtry began to walk again, briskly and without any fear, understanding herself at last. And understanding that duty, the most indecent of all obsessions, was only another name for love.
About this Book
The Second World War has just ended and Sister Honour Langtree, a caring and conscientious Army nurse, cares for a striking mixture of five battle-broken soldiers being treated in the psychiatric care ward of a hospital in the South Pacific. To the soldiers, Honour is a precious, adored reminder of the world before war – they are as devoted to her as she is to them.
Then Sergeant Michael Wilson arrives, disrupting her ward’s precarious harmony. A damaged and decorated hero, Wilson is a man of secrets and silent pain, and as Honour finds herself inexorably drawn to this tortured man, she discovers a love that will leave her torn between her duty to all her patients – and her love for one of them…
Reviews
“McCullough is terrific… Her characters quiver with life” —The New York Times Book Review
“A master storyteller” —Los Angeles Times
“A second bestseller” —The Times
“Leaves one’s pulse racing” —New York Times
“More intriguing, more provoking than The Thorn Birds” —Washington Post
Other Head of Zeus titles by Colleen McCullough
1. Tim
Forty-three-year-old Mary Horton lives in a quiet, middle-class suburb on Sydney’s North Shore. A straight-laced, emotionally distant spinster, Mary has worked hard to make a life for herself, but her idea of ‘life’ does not include personal relationships. With no partner and no friends, Mary has no plans to let anybody into her solitary life.
Tim Melville is a twenty-five-year-old labourer with the body and face of a Greek god, but the mind of a child. A gentle outcast in a cruel, unbending world, Tim has a loving family, but is often derided and taken advantage of by his so-called friends.
By chance, one summer morning Tim meets Mary and what begins as a day’s labour for the kind-hearted young man becomes a life-changing relationship for both of them.
Tim is available here.
2. The Thorn Birds
In the rugged Australian Outback, three generations of Cleary’s live through joy and sadness, bitter defeat and magnificent triumph. Driven by their dreams, sustained by remarkable strength of character… and torn by dark passions, violence and a scandalous family legacy of forbidden love.
It is a poignant love story, a powerful epic of struggle and sacrifice, a celebration of individuality and spirit. Most of all, it is the story of the Clearys’ only daughter, Meggie, who can never possess the man she so desperately adores –Ralph de Bricassart. Ralph will rise from parish priest to the inner circles of the Vatican… but his passion for Meggie will follow him all the days of his life.
The Thorn Birds is available here.
3. An Indecent Obsession
The Second World War has just ended and Sister Honour Langtree, a caring and conscientious Army nurse, cares for a striking mixture of five battle-broken soldiers being treated in the psychiatric care ward of a hospital in the South Pacific. To the soldiers, Honour is a precious, adored reminder of the world before war – they are as devoted to her as she is to them.
Then Sergeant Michael Wilson arrives, disrupting her ward’s precarious harmony. A damaged and decorated hero, Wilson is a man of secrets and silent pain, and as Honour finds herself inexorably drawn to this tortured man, she discovers a love that will leave her torn between her duty to all her patients – and her love for one of them…
An Indecent Obsession is available here.
About the Author
Colleen McCullough was born in Wellington, New South Wales in 1937. A neuroscientist by training, she worked in hospitals in Sydney and the UK before settling into ten years of research and teaching in the Department of Neurology at the Yale Medical School in the USA. In 1974 her first novel, Tim, was published, followed by the international bestseller The Thorn Birds in 1977. Colleen McCullough now lives with her husband on Norfolk Island in the South Pacific.
About Head of Zeus
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First published in Great Britain by Macdonald & Co (Publishers) in 1981.
This edition first published in the UK in 2013 by Head of Zeus Ltd.
Copyright © Colleen McCullough, 1981
The moral right of Colleen McCullough to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
This is a work of fiction. All characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
9 7 5 3 1 2 4 6 8
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN (E) 9781781852521
Head of Zeus Ltd
Clerkenwell House
45-47 Clerkenwell Green
London EC1R 0HT
www.headofzeus.com
Contents
Cover
Welcome Page
Dedication
Part 1
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Part 2
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Part 3
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Part 4
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Part 5
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Part 6
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Part 7
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
About this Book
Reviews
Other Head of Zeus titles by Colleen McCullough
About the Author
About Head of Zeus
Copyright
