"The Cursed Diamond"

Anna Rasche is an author, gemologist, and historian who has previously worked in the jewelry collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Her debut novel, The Stone Witch of Florence, was an October 2024 Indie Next pick, and was recommended by the Washington Post, Entertainment Weekly, Publishers Weekly, Book Riot and many others. Her writing has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, CrimeReads, and elsewhere.

Rasche applied the Page 69 Test to her new novel, The Cursed Diamond, and reported the following:

Ahh, page 69 is a good one. Our protagonist, Jennie, is pondering the meaning of two mysterious objects–an empty jewelry box and a 100-year-old ticket stub–that she just found inside an abandoned jeweler’s workshop in New York’s Diamond District. She'd gained access to the workshop in order to search for answers after the sudden death of a friend, and a sense of foreboding tells her she may be on the right track. Lost in her thoughts as she leaves the dusty old room, Jennie runs head on into a slick gentleman in front of the building's elevator …

Browsers will get a nice idea of half of the book from page 69. The Cursed Diamond is a dual timeline, and this scene takes place in 2010. There is a whole other Gilded Age timeline to explore! That being said, this page plunges readers right into a central mystery of the story and provides a fine introduction to our bewildered yet determined heroine.

Visit Anna Rasche's website.

Q&A with Anna Rasche.

--Marshal Zeringue