Author(s): Natalie Bate (Read by); Jane Nolan (Read by); Di Morrissey; Judy Nunn

Audio

Queenie Hanlon has a perfect life. She's the mother of two adoring children, the wealthy owner of a thriving outback station and the lover of handsome bushman TR Hamilton. Then one day when TR is seriously injured in a riding accident, Queenie's perfect life suddenly comes crashing down. Her bitter and vengeful brother returns from Italy to lay claim to his inheritance. Her precious daughter is seduced by her uncle into giving up all she's strived for. And her beloved TR can no longer recall the life they once shared. Once before Queenie Hanlon was robbed of everything she ever loved, surely it can't happen again?In 1881 'Big Jim' Durham, an English soldier of fortune and profiteer, 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.The massive estate becomes a self-sufficient fortress, a cane-consuming monster and home to hundreds of workers, but 'Elianne' and its masters, the Durham Family, have dark and distant secrets; secrets that surface in the wildest and most inflammatory of times, the 1960s.For Kate Durham and her brothers Neil and Alan, freedom is the catchword of the decade. Young Australians leap to the barricades of the social revolution. 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 1881 'Big Jim' Durham, an English soldier of fortune and profiteer, 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.The massive estate becomes a self-sufficient fortress, a cane-consuming monster and home to hundreds of workers, but 'Elianne' and its masters, the Durham Family, have dark and distant secrets; secrets that surface in the wildest and most inflammatory of times, the 1960s.For Kate Durham and her brothers Neil and Alan, freedom is the catchword of the decade. Young Australians leap to the barricades of the social revolution. 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 ...