MILLION COPY BESTSELLING AUTHOR A sweeping story of wealth, power, privilege and betrayal, set on a grand sugar cane plantation in Queensland. LEGACY IN THE CANE FIELDS In 1881 'Big Jim' Durham ruthlessly creates for Elianne Desmarais, his young French wife, the finest of the great sugar mills of the Southern Queensland cane fields, and names it in her honour. SUGAR AND SECRETS The massive estate becomes a self-sufficient fortress and home to hundreds of workers, but 'Elianne' and the Durham Family, have dark and distant secrets; secrets that surface in the wildest of times, the 1960s. AN ERA OF CHANGE For Kate Durham and her brothers Neil and Alan, freedom is the catchword of the decade. Rock 'n' roll, the Pill, the Vietnam War, the rise of Feminism, Asian immigration and the Freedom Ride join forces to rattle the chains of traditional values. The workers leave the great sugar estates as mechanisation lessens the need for labour - and the Durham family, its secrets exposed, begins its fall from grace... In the tough world of Queensland sugar mills, it's not only cane that is crushed ... ____________ 'Mistress of the ripping yarn.' SUN-HERALD '500 pages of perfect reading.' AUSTRALIAN WOMEN'S WEEKLY 'Perfect summer reading.' SYDNEY MORNING HERALD 'A master of what she does.' WEEKLY TIMES 'A stunning blockbuster.' WOMAN'S DAY 'A prolific writer of bestsellers.' THE AGE