Lily King

Well, the very first one was The Thorn Birds by Colleen McCullough.

I was 15.

My mother had just remarried.

I finally got the canopy bed that I always wanted, that she had, but then when she remarried, it was too small.

And I have such vivid memories of lying in that bed for like an entire weekend, just devouring the thorn birds.

I loved that book.

I thought it was the sexiest, sexiest book.

And now when I think of it, it is about a priest who falls in love with a four-year-old child.

I mean, they don't do anything until she's about 17 or 18.

But I thought, you know, it was just so beautiful, that sense of destiny.

And, of course, they're star-crossed lovers.

And they can't ever really be together.

But the attraction is just, like, palpable.

And I try not to think about her being 4 and then 8 and then 12.

But it was just, for a 15-year-old girl, it was enthralling.

Shirley Hazard.

Oh, I love the response.

The Evening of the Holiday and Transit of Venus.

I guess those are the two that I would push for.

They're such entirely different books.