Search
Log in
  • Home

  • Categories

  • Audiobooks

  • E-books

  • For kids

  • Top lists

  • Help

  • Download app

  • Use campaign code

  • Redeem gift card

  • Try free now
  • Log in
  • Language

    🇳🇴 Norge

    • NO
    • EN

    🇧🇪 Belgique

    • FR
    • EN

    🇩🇰 Danmark

    • DK
    • EN

    🇩🇪 Deutschland

    • DE
    • EN

    🇪🇸 España

    • ES
    • EN

    🇫🇷 France

    • FR
    • EN

    🇳🇱 Nederland

    • NL
    • EN

    🇦🇹 Österreich

    • AT
    • EN

    🇨🇭 Schweiz

    • DE
    • EN

    🇫🇮 Suomi

    • FI
    • EN

    🇸🇪 Sverige

    • SE
    • EN
  1. Books
  2. Historic and folklore novels
  3. Historic novels

Read and listen for free for 42 days!

Cancel anytime

Try free now
4.3(6)

The Touch: A Novel

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’s 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—or 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.


Author:

  • Colleen McCullough

Narrator:

  • Jenny Sterlin

Format:

  • Audiobook

Duration:

  • 6 h 43 min

Language:

English

Categories:

  • Historic and folklore novels
  • Historic novels

More by Colleen McCullough

Skip the list
  1. Sangen om Troja

    Colleen McCullough

    audiobookbook
  2. Eine Liebe an der roten Küste : Australien-Roman – Die Romanvorlage für das romantische Drama »Tim – Kann das Liebe sein?« mit Mel Gibson

    Colleen McCullough

    book
  3. Die Wasser des Rubikon : Historischer Roman | Masters of Rome 7 – Epische Schlachten und brillante Intrigen

    Colleen McCullough

    book
  4. Caesars Frauen : Historischer Roman | Masters of Rome 5 – Die heimlichen Königmacherinnen der Antike

    Colleen McCullough

    book
  5. Tochter des Adlers : Historischer Roman | Masters of Rome 6 – Ein grausames Spiel zwischen Liebe und Macht

    Colleen McCullough

    book
  6. Die Krone der Republik : Historischer Roman | Masters of Rome 2 – historische Epik für Fans von Robert Fabbri

    Colleen McCullough

    book
  7. Das Blut des Spartacus : Historischer Roman | Masters of Rome 4 – Die Sklaven Roms erheben sich

    Colleen McCullough

    book
  8. Günstlinge der Götter : Historischer Roman | Masters of Rome 3 – Der Aufstieg des Julius Caesar

    Colleen McCullough

    book
  9. Adler des Imperiums : Historischer Roman | Masters of Rome 1 – zwischen finsteren Intrigen und epischen Schlachten

    Colleen McCullough

    book
  10. Die Frauen von Missalonghi : Australienroman

    Colleen McCullough

    book
  11. Die Stadt der Hoffnung : Roman

    Colleen McCullough

    book
  12. Tim

    Colleen McCullough

    audiobookbook

Others have also read

Skip the list
  1. Wonder spot

    Melissa Bank

    audiobookbook
  2. You Made Me Love You : Selected Stories, 1981-2018

    John Edgar Wideman

    book
  3. Sandslottet

    Iris Murdoch

    audiobookbook
  4. Forever Across the Marsh

    Jeff Pearson

    audiobook
  5. The Wind in the Willows

    Kenneth Grahame

    audiobookbook
  6. Kattens bord

    Michael Ondaatje

    book
  7. The Story of the Cannibal Woman : A Novel

    Maryse Condé

    book
  8. Småstadsliv i Cranford

    Elizabeth Gaskell

    audiobookbook
  9. Silas Marner

    George Eliot

    audiobookbook
  10. In the South Seas

    Robert Louis Stevenson

    book
  11. Dreaming Spies : A novel of suspense featuring Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes

    Laurie R. King

    audiobook
  12. The Collected Works of Pedro Calderon de la Barca : PergamonMedia

    Pedro Calderon de la Barca

    book

  • 33 books

    Colleen McCullough

    Born in 1937, Colleen McCullough was a neuroscientist by training and worked in various Sydney and English hospitals before settling in the Department of Neurology at Yale Medical School in the USA. Her hugely successful novel, The Thorn Birds, was published in 1977 followed by a string of bestselling books. Colleen lived for many years on Norfolk Island and died there in 2015 aged 77.

    Read more

Help and contact


About us

  • Our story
  • Career
  • Press
  • Accessibility
  • Partner with us
  • Investor relations
  • Instagram
  • Facebook

Explore

  • Categories
  • Audiobooks
  • E-books
  • Magazines
  • For kids
  • Top lists

Popular categories

  • Crime
  • Biographies and reportage
  • Fiction
  • Feel-good and romance
  • Personal development
  • Children's books
  • True stories
  • Sleep and relaxation

Nextory

Copyright © 2025 Nextory AB

Privacy Policy · Terms ·
Excellent4.3 out of 5