The Touch

A powerful, sweeping family saga in the grand tradition of the international bestseller The Thorn Birds - a story of tragedy, passion, hatred and love.

Alexander Kinross is remembered in his native Scotland only as a shiftless boilermaker's apprentice and a godless rebel. But, when he writes from Australia to summon his bride, his Scottish relatives realize that he has made a fortune on the goldfields and is 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. Offered no choice, she marries him and is whisked at once across 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 and 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 his present one. She has no idea that he still has a mistress, the sensuous, tough, outspoken Ruby Costevan. Captured by their very different natures, Alexander resolves to have both Elizabeth and Ruby - 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 only fails him when it comes to these two women…