Priscilla Brown reflects on diamonds

 

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Recently at the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra I attended an exhibition of jewellery created by the Paris House of Cartier.  Writers often keep their characters in their heads, and during this I was accompanied by Cassandra from Silver Linings. Crazy? Probably! Cassandra designs and fashions silver jewellery, and though Cartier works with gems, she would love such an exhibition.

 The more than 300 pieces of jewellery and related ephemera have been lent by Cartier, by the British royal family, the Victoria and Albert Museum (London), the Princely Palace of Monaco, private collections and others. The first impression on walking into the darkened exhibition is of glittering and almost overwhelming opulence. The pieces are displayed in LED-lit high-security cases of varying sizes according to the item, and accompanied by brief details. I was particularly entranced by the life-size figure of Queen Marie of Romania, a grand-daughter of Queen Victoria, wearing a ball dress with a long shimmering pendant given to her by her husband King Ferdinand.

And the jewels themselves – diamonds, diamonds and more diamonds, different sizes, different types of ‘cuts’ and facets, various settings in precious metals such as gold or platinum; some larger gems such as emeralds are carved, others are polished but not given facets. Designs of every imaginable style are evident.

As well as jewellery for personal adornment, Cartier designed accoutrements including vanity and lipstick cases, powder compacts, clasps for handbags and evening bags, clocks, watches, cigarette holders and cases and lighters, cigar cutters, ashtrays. One area of the exhibition displays historic items specifically for men, and contains several smoking accessories.   Another space is set up to illustrate the stages of jewellery production. Each table explains the process from the designer’s idea, to the jeweller, the cutter and the polisher, with one table showing the tools used.  Cassandra would have been interested in these as some are similar to those she uses for her work.

As well as European royalty, Indian maharajahs, and the generally very well-heeled, Cartier attracted stage and screen personalities, the latter not only with jewellery for themselves but to display in their movies. In the final section of the exhibition, Grace Kelly, Audrey Hepburn and Marilyn Monroe flaunt jewellery in movie clips shown sound-free with subtitles, making an enjoyable ending to a couple of hours spent with the jewels.

Leaving Cassandra behind, over coffee at the café I wondered whether, as a writer of contemporary romances, I could imagine a story where the lead character owns a vault-full of diamonds.  So far, my notebook is blank on this, but who knows!

Enjoy your reading!  Priscilla

(This image is not from the exhibition.)

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Murder in a Karate Studio is the subject of this newest release from BWL Publishing and Diane Bator

Dead Without Honor
A Gilda Wright Mystery

The scroll of the Four Possessions of the Samurai holds the key to a deadly mystery…

Gilda Wright thinks she’s landed a dream job as the receptionist at a karate school. Her boss, Sensei Mick Williams, is almost as demanding as he is sexy, but Gilda is inspired by the strength and courage of the people around her. When Gilda finds the body of one of the instructors in the dojo with a sword through his chest, she must find her own inner strength and fast! The police regard everyone in the school as suspects, including her boss, and it’s up to Gilda to find out what really happened. She follows the clues of the missing scroll of the Four Possessions of the Samurai down a deadly path filled with lies, deceit, and poisoned ninja stars. If she doesn’t watch her back, she just may become the killer’s next target.
 AMAZON BUY LINK

DIANE'S BWL AUTHOR PAGE, WITH PURCHASE LINKS

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Previously published as Can’t Keep a Brunette Down
5.0 out of 5 stars Great Series
By EH (

This is the first book in an awesome series by Diane Bator. I loved the characters & the setting (Karate Studio). I highly recommend getting this and the second book together so that you can keep reading about these engaging characters, Gilda Wright is the main character who works at a Karate studio. She keeps finding dead bodies when she goes to work. Gilda & her friends must find out what really happened before it's too late. Well written, funny series.

5.0 out of 5 stars Unique and highly enjoyable cozy mystery.

 By Jeanie Jackson 

An awesome book! Even better than I expected. Gilda is of course the most clearly defined character and she is so relatable. The book is very much written in the cozy mystery style but it goes beyond the typical. The characters are not all good or all bad, well except for the murderer of course. Gilda sees the weaknesses in her friends but she can still love and respect them. While I was able to guess the murderer, I wasn't sure until near the end and could only partly guess the motivations. That makes for a good mystery to me.

5.0 out of 5 stars From the cover I was expecting just some book about ...

By Mary Nash

From the cover I was expecting just some book about a chick learning the martial arts and becoming a champ. This book is so much than that. There is so much intensity, intrigue, and mystery, and yes a little romance, that the book starts off with a bang and keeps on going til the end. This is not a cutesy little story. It is so much more

They persisted...

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Fly Away Snow Goose

I've been pretty down of late, as I look at the state of the world. Here and there, though, there are still a few signs of the positive--maybe it's not exactly winning, but at least it persists in the face of negativity from every side.

My friend Dolly, now a cane-wielding elder living in a local HUD building told me this story, and I thought I'd share it. Her apartment building, between HUD and various ill-organized and underfunded landlords, has been undergoing a much-needed upgrading of facilities. The end results are fine, but the long drawn out process of waiting every day for "the workmen to come" --ones who rarely if ever do show--has been going on for over a year now. Some of these tenants are on oxygen, some use walkers and wheelchairs to get around, some are mentally challenged. Only a very few have access to transportation. The long waits between one improvement and the next are punctuated by bursts of frantic activity and huge amounts of noise, usually beginning around 6 a.m. with no notice. This uncoordinated rehab has frayed the tenants' sanity--and some of them are already a bit short on that commodity. Added stress is not welcome in a community of the disabled.

On her little balcony Dolly once looked down up a small green space with a few trees, a bench, and a flower bed with a geranium in summer and daffodils in spring. The local community, in its wisdom, just turned that into an acre of concrete--a new downtown shopping mall with parking for visitors. This too is unfinished, and it contributes to the construction site ambiance around the building. On that balcony, she had a basket from last year still hung, and as the weather warmed, she noticed that a pair of purple finches were cheerfully building a nest there, now that there was nowhere else in their neighborhood. 

Dolly was delighted--but terrified, too--because workmen were supposed to sandblast her balcony and install some new screens and she really had no idea when that might happen. So now she worried about the tiny birds, singing so happily just outside her window, oblivious to the noise of construction and traffic far below. Her heart yearned over these bright innocents; she wanted them to be successful, happy parents and to keep singing, but now she feared that like a lot of things she'd seen in life, the end would not be happy.

The Mrs. and her Mister.

When she began to tell about the birds over the phone yesterday, I could feel my guts clench with unhappy anticipation. She said that the finches had laid eggs and were sitting on them when the sandblast guys arrived. Dolly met them at the door in a panic, begging them to "be careful of my poor birds." She drew a deep breath and then said: "But you know what? Those men were so good! They covered everything, and they were so careful of the nest and got it all done quickly."

"All that noise and commotion!"

"Well of course the parents left."

"Poor things; they had no choice."

"Yes, but I couldn't believe it; they came back!"

"OMG! They persisted!"

"That's right, it was just like that. I couldn't believe it either. On Wednesday morning, when I looked out, there were four baby birds, little heads sticking up. The parents have been coming and going all the time to feed them." 

Whew! At least for now--a happy ending.

But I should add another paragraph to this story. These kind workmen are itinerant labor, men who work far away from their homes just to collect a $12/hr. paycheck. These guys took the time to listen to a little old lady who must have looked about half crazy when she met them at the door. Even more, they went out of their way to be helpful to these "insignificant" fellow creatures by protecting that nest.

Bless 'em, I say, for their decency to a tender-hearted elder and to those little bitty birds.




~~Juliet Waldron

B&N Link to Fly Away Snow Goose