Author Ronda Rich visits Athens Thursday for book signing
Ronda Rich, a longtime author and former columnist for the Athens Banner-Herald, will be in Athens Thursday for a book signing to mark the release of her newest novel “St. Simons Island: A Stella Bankwell Mystery.”
The signing is from 3 to 5:30 p.m. at Appointments at Five, 1730 South Lumpkin St.
The book is the first in a new series in which the main character, Stella Bankwell, finds challenges in a different coastal island in each novel. The next island for adventure is Sapelo.
The main character is a native of Turner’s Corner, a small north Georgia community near Blood Mountain. Stella married into a wealthy Atlanta family, but soon found herself as Rich says, “in a heap of trouble,” and she ends up on St. Simons.
There she and her friends, one who is modeled after former governor Zell Miller, are caught in a web of murder and illegal money laundering on St. Simons Island.
Rich and her husband, John Tinker, a television writer and producer, reside outside Atlanta She is widely familiar in Athens, where her syndicated column was once a Sunday edition regular in the Banner-Herald.
“My column ran there for 21 years. Everyone was so kind,” Rich said about the reaction she received about her columns mostly about her life’s encounters with people from next door to yonder.
Rich said she became acquainted with Athens in her early years as a sportswriter covering SEC sports.
The closeness she felt in Athens on autumn Saturdays was almost unique.
“I can say it about this city, and I say it about Lexington, Kentucky. They are very similar cities where people come together for a common cause,” Rich said.
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This article originally appeared on Athens Banner-Herald: Author Ronda Rich visits Athens for signing of new novel
