‘Lightning Ridge Ladies’ is Romantic Book of the Year
Story: Kristin Murdock – kmurdock@outbackradio.com.au
There was only one place author Fiona McArthur could set the book that has just been named Romantic Book of the Year in the Romantic Elements/Women’s Fiction category – Lightning Ridge.
The Lightning Ridge Ladies took out the honour at the Romance Writers of Australia awards, adding another chapter to a relationship between the bestselling author and the opal town which began when she arrived looking for someone who could show her the “real” Lightning Ridge.
Fiona said the town was distinctive enough to convince her to do something she had never done before – use the real name of a location in one of her novels.
“Because there’s nowhere that’s like Lightning Ridge, and it couldn’t be anything but itself,” she said.
What followed was not simply research for a novel, but a connection with the people and places of Lightning Ridge which has continued well beyond publication.
Fiona, who lives on the NSW Mid North Coast, travelled to the Ridge determined to get the details right.
She walked into the Visitor Information Centre, introduced herself and explained that she wanted to find someone who could show her the town, so she didn’t “stuff up with things that I don’t know.”
That conversation led to local Kelly Tishler, a third-generation Lightning Ridge miner and opal artist.
Kelly arrived the following morning in her ute and pink work boots and took the author on a tour of the Ridge, showing her where opal was washed and introducing her to the realities of life in the mining community. […]
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