A neuroscientist by training, she worked in various Sydney and United Kingdom hospitals before settling to ten years of research and teaching in the Department of Neurology at the Yale Medical School in New Haven, Connecticut, USA.
Her novels include "Tim", "The Thorn Birds", "Indecent Obsession" and "Morgans Run" and the "Masters of Rome" series. The depth of historical research in the Roman novels led to her being created a Doctor of Letters by Macquarie University in 1993.
She is a member of the New York Academy of Sciences and is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
In the late 1970s she settled on Norfolk Island, where she lives with her husband.