It is really easy, reading through the pages of bestselling Australian author Fiona McArthur’s latest novel The Opal Miner’s Daughter, that she fell in love with the setting over the book.
The heartwarming new medical rural romance from the bestselling Australian author of The Bush Telegraph is set in Lightning Ridge.
A fact finding visit had her falling in love with the region, even planning, in her head at least, where she might live.
Fiona is a leader in the Australian rural writing genre, with countless bestselling novels to her credit.
This novel is a moving, heartwarming story about new life and new loves, about the treasures to be found above and beneath the surface of a small country town, and about the important choices women must make in life.
Set in the small dusty community of Lightning Ridge, the novel follows obsestrician Riley Brand who leaves the city in search of her mother who’s left her marriage to pursue a passion for opal mining.
Riley accepts a short term posting in the community and assists women to pursue their baby dreams in remote and regional areas. Here she bonds with Konrad Grey, the GP working alongside her, as they are thrown together in challenging and wonderful ways.
As with most of her novels the book draws on her earlier life as a rural midwife and once again it also shares her love of working with women, families and health professionals.
In her compassionate, pacey fiction, her love of the Australian landscape meshes beautifully with warm, funny, multigenerational characters as she highlights challenges for rural and remote families, and the strength shared between women.
Fiona is the author of the non-fiction book Aussie Midwives, and lives on a farm with her husband in northern New South Wales. She was awarded the NSW Excellence in Midwifery Award in 2015 and the Australian Ruby Award for Contemporary Romantic Fiction in 2020.
