When I wrote the story of Opal Clemenger in The
Italian's Virgin Bride, I gave Opal two sisters. Sapphy Clemenger, a
fashion designer working in Milan, had her moment in the sun in Stolen by
the Sheikh. The remaining sister, Ruby Clemenger now gets her chance
in A Virgin for the Taking.
Set in Broome, Western Australia, amidst the fascinating
Pacific Pearl industry, A Virgin for the Taking features high stakes,
high glamour and high passion, as Ruby Clemenger crosses swords with Zane
Bastiani, the pearl master's son, who has returned to claim his inheritance
and is not at all impressed to learn he has to share it with Ruby.
Broome is a town that has always inspired
heady emotion. Lodged between the Kimberley Range and the glorious Indian
Ocean and once a ramshackle frontier town made rich on the discovery
of pearl shell, Broome is once again a boom town. After the collapse of
the Pearl shell industry with the invention of plastics, modern cultured pearling
techniques spawned a flourishing new industry and have seen the
magnificent Pacific Pearls become acknowledged as the most beautiful pearls in
the world.
I travelled to Broome in 2005 to research Ruby's
story and while I'd always been fascinated with the mystique of this far flung
Aussie town, I'd never really appreciated the rich history and the sheer
colour of the place. After riding camels along the magnificent
Cable Beach, after visiting a pearl farm and witnessing the unforgettable spectacle
of "The Staircase to the Moon" as the full moon rises over the tidal
mud flats of Roebuck Bay, I had a whole better appreciation of just what
Broome offers.The heat, the colour, the vibrant population mix - Broome truly
is one of Australia's wonderlands.
So if you haven't had the chance to
travel there yourself, or it's been a long time between visits, I really hope
you enjoy this chance to visit Broome, and to sample its colour
and its lifestyle, in Ruby Clemenger's and Zane Bastiani's
passionate story, A Virgin for the Taking.
I
would love to hear from you, so please visit me at my website www.trishmorey.com
