Introduction

From M.J. Rose, New York Times bestselling author of Tiffany Blues, “a lush, romantic historical mystery” (Kristin Hannah, The Nightingale), comes a gorgeously wrought novel of ambition and betrayal set in the Gilded Age.

New York, 1910: A city of extravagant balls in Fifth Avenue mansions and poor immigrants crammed into crumbling Lower East Side tenements. A city where the suffrage movement is growing stronger every day, but most women reporters are still delegated to the fashion and lifestyle pages. But Vera Garland is set on making her mark in a man’s world of serious journalism.

Shortly after the world-famous Hope Diamond is acquired for a record sum, Vera begins investigating rumors about schemes by its new owner, jeweler Pierre Cartier, to manipulate its value. Vera is determined to find the truth behind the notorious diamond and its legendary curses—even better when the expose puts her in the same orbit as a magazine publisher whose blackmailing schemes led to the death of her beloved father.

Appealing to a young Russian jeweler for help, Vera is unprepared when she begins falling in love with him…and even more unprepared when she gets caught up in his deceptions and finds herself at risk of losing all she has worked so hard to achieve.

Set against the backdrop of New York’s glitter and grit, of ruthless men and the atrocities they commit in the pursuit of power, this enthralling historical novel explores our very human needs for love, retribution—and to pursue one’s destiny, regardless of the cost.

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Excerpt

Chapter 1

New York City February 3, 1911

Diamonds, scientists say, are the world’s hardest material. And yet, like a heart, a diamond breaks. When I was a reporter covering a story about the Hope Diamond, my research taught me that often a gem cut- ter will study a major stone for months, deciding where to strike, as cleaving is a precise and risky effort. If the jeweler misjudges, he can destroy the stone. As a woman, I’ve learned the same thing. A single mistake can destroy a relationship.

Standing here in the cold, staring at the fountain in front of the Plaza Hotel, I try to pretend that I’m not really crying. That what look like tears are simply snowflakes melting on my cheeks. But that’s just another lie. And I promised myself that I was done with lies. Untruths, whether by omission or commission, are how I got here—a place I never wanted to be and from which I am trying to escape.

For weeks and weeks, my sadness has felt oddly comforting. A proof of love. A reminder that even if I have lost that love, I did have it once. And now the time has come to fight for it. But am I willing to risk what is left of my pride? Willing to risk another failure even if there’s little—if any—chance of winning that love back?

My father once said, The fight is all. But so far, this fight has laid me bare, stripped me of all pretense, and broken my heart.

The snow is falling harder now, dressing the marble woman in the foun- tain in a gown of white. As more snow catches in my eyelashes and hair and lands on my face, melting and mixing with the tears, I wonder if my father was right.

This spot on Fifth Avenue between Fifty-eighth and Fifty-ninth Streets has been the epicenter of my city and so many moments in my life. To my right is Central Park, all dusted with white on this early evening—the liv- ing, breathing forest that has always been my refuge. To my left, across the avenue and down a block, is my father’s department store on Fifty-seventh Street, designed by my uncle and right in the heart of New York City’s new- est fashionable uptown shopping district.

If I look downtown a bit farther and west, if I crane my neck just a little, I can see the rooftop gables of the building that houses Pierre Cartier’s jew- elry shop.

But back to the fountain. In 1890, my father brought me to its installation ceremony. I was twelve years old. My sister was sick with a sore throat, so I was alone with him. My father spent a lot of time with me and always talked to me like an adult. He shared information about all the subjects he found interesting. The way fashions changed, how clothes and shoes and fabrics and jewelry were designed and made. How desire fueled commerce. What made someone want to buy something they didn’t need.

He was a great reader, especially of history. Ancient Rome, Egypt, Greece, the Renaissance, and seventeenth-century France were some of his favorite periods. And as we stood with the crowd that night with the fire- works bursting overhead, he told me the story of the woman whose form graced the fountain. Elpis, a symbol of hope.

“The first woman created by Zeus, Pandora,” he said, “had a jar—I be- lieve it was a jar, not a box—that contained all the wonders of the world: life, renewal, love, generosity, wisdom, and empathy. Warned not to open the jar by Zeus, Pandora did her best to obey but ultimately gave in to temptation.” Here he stopped to give me a stern look to warn me about little girls who did not obey their fathers. “When she opened the jar, all the elements flew out. Beauty is limited, our health breaks down, our love fades. And we die. But it turned out that one thing remained in the jar after all—the one thing left to all of us when we face the tragedies in our lives. A tiny creature named Elpis, also known as hope. She stayed in Pandora’s jar so that she could revisit us after all our miseries. So that we can hope that the hard times will get better, hope that grief will soften, hope that terrors will quell.”

As I remember this moment, my heart aches. How much love can you lose and still have hope that you ever will find love again? And if you do find it, how can you know that it will last for any time at all?

My father had tried to teach me that love, no matter how short-lived, was worth fighting for. Worth savoring. He always spoke of it with a wistfulness I never quite understood. For years, I wondered where his sadness came from. A successful businessman, father, and husband, he didn’t seem to have had any tragedy in his life.

But that was a feeling. Not a fact. I am a reporter; I know how import- ant the facts are. And when I discovered the facts of my father’s past, they changed my life.

One of those facts was that my father had, indeed, endured a terrible tragedy a few weeks before he died. Another fact was that he had tried to hide it from me, as well as from my sister and my mother. Yet another fact was that in Paris in 1909, C. H. Rosenau sold a forty-five-carat blue diamond to Pierre Cartier, grandson of the French jeweler who had founded the world-renowned maison. It is another fact that in January 1911, Evalyn Walsh McLean and her husband purchased that same stone from Cartier.

Between those facts is a tale rich with revenge, robberies, myths, curses, psychics, lost fortunes, outright lies, murder, and heartache. And just a few months ago, it became my job as an investigative journalist to look at all the different facets of the story of the diamond originally known as the French Blue—but now known as the Hope—for a weekly magazine called the Gotham Gazette. view abbreviated excerpt only...

Discussion Questions

While the book takes place in 1910 there are a lot of social and economic and feminist issues. Did you think things are drastically different today or are we still dealing with many of the same things?

Do you believe in luck? Other superstitions? Would you hold the Hope Diamond?

M.J. Rose has several instances in this book of doing the wrong thing for the right reason. Do you think they were all justified?

Cartier’s Hope carefully paints a picture of the Gilded Age in New York City — all based on research. Did it surprise you? Or was it how you imagined? Were there any parts of that past you’d like to experience?

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