The Love of Stones A Novel

Burrowing through the goldsmiths' quarters and hidden archives of London, Tokyo, and Istanbul, Katharine Sterne is on the trail of a ruby, diamond, and pearl brooch once worn by Queen Elizabeth I. Interwoven with the tale of her hunt is that of a pair of Iraqi Jewish brothers who traveled to London two hundred years earlier with fortunes made from an unearthed jar of priceless stones. Spanning two continents and six centuries,The Love of Stonesfollows three very different people, each consumed by the same desirepossession of the legendary jewelwhich binds their stories together in an irresistible quest.

Tobias Hill has published three award-winning collections of poetry; a story collection, Skin, which won the 1998 PEN/Macmillan Award for fiction and was shortlisted for the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize; and a novel, Underground, in 1999. He lives in England.

“Equal parts mystery-thriller, literary novel and history lesson...an intriguing high-tension novel.” —Los Angeles Times

“If there is such a thing as a poet’s thriller, Tobias Hill’s new novel, The Love of Stones, is that.” —The New York Times Book Review

“Absorbing...compelling...[with] the urgent readability of a detective novel.” —The Washington Post Book World

“Rendered with lush poetic detail...Its intrigue, its precision and its intellectual sophistication make it a glittering production and a carefully honed, delicious quest.” —The Dallas Morning News