The Jeweled Daughter

Anne Maybury's The Jeweled Daughter, written in 1976, was a book I saw on a shelf at Baldwin's Book Barn last year. I was perusing the shelves in the fiction section and the colour of the book jumped out at me. Then I read the name: The Jeweled Daughter and just had to get a closer look. It's a soft leather-bound book (at least I think it's leather, but your guess is better than mine) that just longed for me to take it home so as to join my family of books. I was hesitant, but a quick look on Amazon showed me that it had good reviews. Okay, so at least it won't be a complete stinker, so I bought it. Once back home, I added it to the stack of books in need of reading and forgot about it. Then it was time for me to write up a list of books to be read in 2021 and something compelled me to add this title. Wanting to feel immediately good about completing goals, I decided that this would be the physical (as in non-audio) book that I would complete in February. 

The story revolves around two women and their former spouses, all English, living and/or working abroad in Hong Kong. The ladies are Theodora Paradine and Sarah Brent. Theodora is a rich bitch who I imagined as actress Annie Lambert as she looked in the Agatha Christie's Poirot episode Triangle at Rhodes. For Sarah, Theodora's personal gemologist, I pictured a young Joanna Lumley. When it came to the fellas, I saw Oliver Farache, the ex-husband of Theodora, as Omar Sharif, and in the role of Marius Brent, Sarah's estranged hubby, I thought of Richard Chamberlain. The book was beautifully written and played like a film in my mind's eye. The story centers around an exquisite ancient jade that Theodora must have and does finally obtain. However, Sarah suspects that perhaps this jade has been stolen and that's when the story takes off. The Jeweled Daughter was a definite page-turner and I kept looking forward to each workday's lunch break so I could soak in the tub for thirty minutes and delve back in to the story. It was well worth the four dollars I paid and it is an absolute keeper. I can see myself re-reading it in a couple years once I've completely forgotten the plot and can read it as if for the first time all over again.

(Annie Lambert photo kidnapped from cvgadget - Joanna Lumley from alchetron - Omar Sharif from vulture - Richard Chamberlain from thefilmographer)