Colleen McCullough

1960, Sydney's Kings Cross. Harriet Purcell leaves her conventional, respectable home and moves into a rooming house owned by Mrs Delvecchio Schwartz. There, Harriet finds a life she relishes – excitement, adventure and passion. Mrs Schwartz is mother to four-year-old Flo. Beautiful little Flo is mute, and Harriet comes to love her as if Flo were her own – and must protect her at all costs when tragedy strikes…

The four Latimer sisters were famous throughout New South Wales for their beauty, wit and sisterly love. But then they left home to train as nurses, swapping their feather beds for the bunks of nursing accommodation. And now, as the Depression casts its shadow across Australia, they must confront their own secret desires. Will the sisters find the independence they crave? Or is life - like love - always bittersweet?