From
the author of The Song of the Jade Lily comes a thrilling story of a
family secret that leads to a legendary treasure.
Why would someone bury a bucket of
precious jewels and gemstones and never return?
Present Day. When respected American jewelry historian,
Kate Kirby, receives a call about the Cheapside jewels, she knows she's on the
brink of the experience of a lifetime.
But the trip to London forces Kate to explore secrets
that have long been buried by her own family. Back in Boston, Kate has
uncovered a series of sketches in her great-grandmother's papers linking her
suffragette great-grandmother Essie to the Cheapside collection. Could these
sketches hold the key to Essie's secret life in Edwardian London?
In
the summer of 1912, impoverished Irish immigrant Essie Murphy happens to be
visiting her brother when a workman's pickaxe strikes through the floor of an
old tenement house in Cheapside, near St. Paul's Cathedral in London. The
workmen uncover a stash of treasure--from Ottoman pendants to Elizabethan and
Jacobean gems--and then the finds disappear again! Could these jewels--one in
particular--change the fortunes of Essie and her sisters?
Together
with photographer Marcus Holt, Kate Kirby chases the history of the Cheapside
gems and jewels, especially the story of a small diamond champlevé enamel ring.
Soon, everything Kate believes about her family, gemology, and herself will be
threatened.
Based on a fascinating
true story, The Lost Jewels is a
riveting historical fiction novel that will captivate readers from the
beginning to the unforgettable, surprising end.
