The lost jewels : a novel

Summary: 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. Back in Boston, Kate has uncovered a series of sketches in the papers of her great-grandmother and suffragist, Essie, linking her 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 worker's pickaxe strikes through the floor of an old tenement house in Cheapside. The workers uncover a stash of treasure, from Ottoman pendants to Elizabethan and Jacobean gems, and then the finds disappear again! Could these jewels change the fortunes of Essie and her sisters? Together with photographer Marcus Holt, Kate Kirby chases the history of the Cheapside gems and jewels. Soon, everything Kate believes about her family, gemology, and herself will be threatened.