Tutukaka writer Lauren Roche’s second novel, Julia Eichardt, is based on the true story of one of those remarkable women.
Roche says Julia was a visionary businesswoman who understood "gold towns come and go, but tourism will last forever".
Arriving in bookstores next Friday, it’s the third historical novel commissioned by Flying Books Publishing’s Sam Paardekooper after his niece asked him why there were no street names or monuments in the region named after women.
Realising their stories needed to be told, Paardekooper published The Nine Lives of Kitty K, by Margaret Mills, in 2021, and Nightshades and Paperwhites, by Sophie Rogers, in 2022.
Julia Shanahan began working at The Queen’s Arms hotel — originally William Rees’ woolshed — some time after arriving in New Zealand in 1863, Roche says.
She married Albert Eichardt in 1868, the year after he became the hotel’s co-owner.
Julia continued running the hotel for a decade, having the partly timber building completely constructed in stone, and making it the first building in the township to be electrified.
She died in 1892, aged 54, after tripping over a piece of wood left outside the hotel’s back door by a builder.
"She struck her head on the windowsill and died — in the hotel — two weeks later."
Roche, who says she’s drawn to stories of strong women, has a fascinating backstory of her own.
The first part of her two-volume autobiography, Bent Not Broken, detailed her childhood sexual abuse, rape, and life as a stripper and prostitute. As a single mother in her early 20s, she returned to school and university, eventually graduating as a medical doctor.
Forced to retire as a doctor six years ago after suffering a spinal cord injury during routine back surgery, she has reinvented herself as a full-time writer.
Roche says she "loved" doing the research for the book.
It included contacting descendants of Julia — who didn’t have children — studying newspaper articles, books and photos from the period, checking ancestry websites, and looking at reports on archaeological digs in the township.
While visiting the resort last August, she stayed at the hotel for several days, sleeping in two rooms in the historic portions of the building.
Unfortunately, none of Julia’s letters have survived, she says. "But the papers and stories that were written during her lifetime spoke about how she was a forward-looking, kind and generous person who wanted her hotel to be the best."
- Roche will appear at the Queenstown launch of Julia Eichardt at Eichardt’s Private Hotel on August 17 at 3pm. Tickets $25 from Eventfinda
