The focus of this book is on the side of the brooch that usually isn't noticed: the reverse. When we encounter an attractive piece of jewelry, our instinct is to admire the front, but when we turn it around, it often reveals a secret. The author lets us in on that secret, typically only shared between the maker and the wearer. Clever brooch makers often adorn the back with items meant to complement the front, or the backside may have a unique, intricate design all its own. When you flip a brooch over in your hand you may find a surprise message, a hidden pattern, or even an unlikely foreign implement. The result is a better understanding of the artist's abilities and personality. Now, you can judge for yourself what the 128 artists respresented in this volume had in mind, and, if you are a jewelry maker, you may be inspired to leave your own unique mark.

This outstanding collection of 500 contemporary brooches showcases the inventive design and technical virtuosity of artists from around the world. It features both traditional and avantgarde approaches to the art of jewelry making. Some pieces are formed from precious metals and gemstones while others are fabricated from found objects. Some are simple and practical while others are elaborate and eccentric. This diverse and beautifully presented collection will inspire jewelers, collectors, and art enthusiasts alike. Book jacket.

Brooches: Timeless Adornment is the first book on the subject of vintage and contemporary pins and brooches. Beginning with an illustrated history of how this jewellery form has evolved from Roman fibulae to scatter pins and starbursts this gorgeously illustrated volume presents more than 175 of the best examples of fine, costume, and artisan jewellery made by top designers, among them Van Cleef & Arpels, Cartier, Georg Jensen, and Ted Muehling. Fashion stylists, celebrity collectors, and jewellery experts share their enthusiasm for the brooch and offer their ideas on how to accessorize with favourite pieces. These dazzling photographs show the jewellery as adornments to stunning jackets, dresses, and coats, and demonstrate how this piece has become a fabulous style statement. Practical information about storing, cleaning, and repair complete this indispensable resource for jewellery fans.

“Jewelry isn’t ordinarily a tool of political persuasion, but in this beautiful book, Madeleine Albright, American ambassador to the United Nations and then the nation’s first female secretary of state, tells the compelling story of how these small objects became part of her ‘personal diplomatic arsenal.’” — The Chicago Tribune From New York Times bestselling author and former secretary of state Madeleine Albright, Read My Pins is a story and celebration of how one woman’s jewelry collection was used to make diplomatic history. Part illustrated memoir, part social history, Read My Pins provides an intimate look at Albright's life through the brooches she wore. Her collection is both international and democratic—dime-store pins share pride of place with designer creations and family heirlooms. Included are the antique eagle purchased to celebrate Albright's appointment as secretary of state, the zebra pin she wore when meeting Nelson Mandela, and the Valentine's Day heart forged by Albright's five-year-old daughter. Read My Pins features more than 200 photographs, along with compelling and often humorous stories about jewelry, global politics, and the life of one of America's most accomplished and fascinating diplomats.

In the mid 1930s, in the workroom of Parisian jeweler Boivin, a jewelry designer created one of the most coveted pieces of jewelry in the world: the famous starfish pin. Created out of gold and encrusted with 71 cabochon rubies and 241 small amethysts, the starfish was distinctive because its five rays were articulated, meaning that they could curl and conform to the bustline or shoulder of the women who wore it. The House of Boivin made three of them. After seeing it in the showroom of a Manhattan jewelry merchant, Burns set off on a journey to find out all she could about the elusive pins and the women who owned them.

David McBain can do the impossible with one hand tied behind his back, but miracles take him a wee bit longer... Two deployments in Afghanistan couldn't prepare Major David McBain and Captain Kenzie Wallis-Manning for the week leading up to D-Day - June 6, 1944. From the bombed-out streets of London to the huts at Bletchley Park and an interview with Alan Turing to the 2nd Battalion Army Rangers and the beaches of Normandy, this high-stakes, time-travel World War II romantic adventure will keep you enthralled, awake into the wee hours, and racing toward the end, only to wish it had never arrived.. West Point graduate Kenzie Wallis-Manning planned to make the Army her career, but after being severely wounded during her second deployment, and suffering from PTSD, she retires from the military and enrolls in law school. While studying in England, she receives a package containing an emerald brooch with a Gaelic inscription. As soon as she sounds out the words engraved on the stone, she is whisked back in time to May 28, 1944. When Elliott Fraser learns his friend's half-sister, Kenzie, has disappeared, he sends David McBain and Jack Mallory to the past to find her, and bring her and her soul mate back to the future. Will David discover the mission pits him against the best interests of Britain? Will Jack's penchant for getting in trouble put his life at risk again? Will Kenzie find her soul mate, or will she lose more on the battlefield of this war than she did in Afghanistan? The Celtic Brooch Series THE RUBY BROOCH (Book 1): Time Travel Romance - Oregon Trail 1852 - Kit MacKlenna and Cullen Montgomery's love story. Introduces: Elliott Fraser and Braham McCabe. THE LAST MACKLENNA (Book 2): Contemporary Romance - Meredith Montgomery and Elliott Fraser's love story. Introduces: David McBain and Kevin Allen. THE SAPPHIRE BROOCH (Book 3): Time Travel Romance - Civil War, 1864-1865 - Charlotte Mallory and Braham McCabe's love story. Introduces: Jack Mallory and includes Elliott, Meredith, David, Kevin, Braham, Kit, and Cullen THE EMERALD BROOCH (Book 4): Time Travel Romance - World War II, London, June 1944. Introduces Kenzie Wallis-Manning. Includes: David, Jack, Elliott, Meredith, Kevin, Charlotte, Braham, and the children. THE DIAMOND BROOCH (Book 5): Time Travel Romance, coming in 2016

From the Badlands to the Bluegrass, this perilous, potentially deadly adventure changes the lives of everyone involved and puts at risk the survival of the Clan and all the Celtic brooches. While dressing for a dinner date with her cousin and James Cullen Fraser, Ensley Williams picks through her jewelry box for some bling to add to her outfit and chooses her late mother's sunstone brooch. Engraved on the inside of the stone is an inscription. When she recites the Celtic words, she's engulfed in a peat-scented fog and transported back to the Dakota Badlands in 1885 where she meets Teddy Roosevelt at his Elkhorn Ranch. When James Cullen discovers Ensley has disappeared, he decides not to tell his family that he's going back to rescue her, which is the worst decision he's ever made. After finding TR at his ranch, Ensley's not in a hurry to return to the future. She grew up in North Dakota near the Theodore Roosevelt National Park, and this is a dream come true. She wants to go on a roundup with TR, while JC wants to go to MacKlenna Farm and "borrow" some gold from Braham McCabe's secret cache. JC makes the second worst decision of his life and leaves Ensley in Roosevelt's hands. While Ensley struggles with bad weather, bad food, stampedes, and wild animals, JC goes up against an evil force that plunges him into a crucible of terror and agony that could bring down the entire MacKlenna Clan. ˃˃˃ This story contains violence, sexually explicit scenes, and adult language and may be considered offensive to some readers. Scroll up and grab a copy today.

“A dynamic group biography studded with design history and high-society dash . . . [This] elegantly wrought narrative bears the Cartier hallmark.”—The Economist The “astounding” (André Leon Talley) story of the family behind the Cartier empire and the three brothers who turned their grandfather’s humble Parisian jewelry store into a global luxury icon—as told by a great-granddaughter with exclusive access to long-lost family archives “Ms. Cartier Brickell has done her grandfather proud.”—The Wall Street Journal The Cartiers is the revealing tale of a jewelry dynasty—four generations, from revolutionary France to the 1970s. At its heart are the three Cartier brothers whose motto was “Never copy, only create” and who made their family firm internationally famous in the early days of the twentieth century, thanks to their unique and complementary talents: Louis, the visionary designer who created the first men’s wristwatch to help an aviator friend tell the time without taking his hands off the controls of his flying machine; Pierre, the master dealmaker who bought the New York headquarters on Fifth Avenue for a double-stranded natural pearl necklace; and Jacques, the globe-trotting gemstone expert whose travels to India gave Cartier access to the world’s best rubies, emeralds, and sapphires, inspiring the celebrated Tutti Frutti jewelry. Francesca Cartier Brickell, whose great-grandfather was the youngest of the brothers, has traveled the world researching her family’s history, tracking down those connected with her ancestors and discovering long-lost pieces of the puzzle along the way. Now she reveals never-before-told dramas, romances, intrigues, betrayals, and more. The Cartiers also offers a behind-the-scenes look at the firm’s most iconic jewelry—the notoriously cursed Hope Diamond, the Romanov emeralds, the classic panther pieces—and the long line of stars from the worlds of fashion, film, and royalty who wore them, from Indian maharajas and Russian grand duchesses to Wallis Simpson, Coco Chanel, and Elizabeth Taylor. Published in the two-hundredth anniversary year of the birth of the dynasty’s founder, Louis-François Cartier, this book is a magnificent, definitive, epic social history shown through the deeply personal lens of one legendary family.

Sparks fly and tension soars when a gutsy 21st century lawyer meets a 19th century Pinkerton agent in a Colorado mining town!Fast-paced Western adventure with a railroad war, gunslingers, dinosaur bones, and romance... Amber Kelly, mining lawyer and amateur paleontologist, visits her family's 19th century log cabin in the Colorado mountains, and discovers a puzzle box hidden in a 200-year-old loom. Inside the box is a brooch engraved with a Gaelic inscription. After reciting the words, an earthy-scented fog engulfs Amber and whisks her off to Leadville, Colorado, in the year 1878. Within minutes of arriving in the infamous boomtown, she witnesses a horrifying accident.Pinkerton Agent Daniel Grant, a widower on assignment to the Rio Grande Railroad, sees his son fall into the path of a freight wagon. Terrified, he knows he can't reach him in time. Amber sprints toward the boy, grabs him, and drags him to safety. Although Daniel is grateful to Amber for saving his son's life, he quickly becomes suspicious of her legal knowledge, odd passion for hunting dinosaur bones, and the inability to answer simple questions about her identity.Olivia Kelly, real estate Broker and former litigator, is distraught over her sister's disappearance. With the assistance of her client, former NYPD detective Connor O'Grady, they search the cabin for clues to Amber's whereabouts. Connor recognizes the puzzle box and is convinced Amber has gone back in time. But where? With the help of his friends, David and Kenzie McBain, they identify two possibilities: Morrison and Canon City, Colorado, in the late 1870s. A plan to rescue Amber is immediately put into action.The time travelers are drawn into the middle of two wars: a ruthless and competitive bone war between two noted paleontologists, and a desperate railroad war between the Santa Fe and the Rio Grande. Their involvement in these wars puts at risk the future of paleontology, the outcome of a sensational legal battle, and the health and hearts of two couples, a ten-year-old boy, and a dog named Ripley.Scroll up and grab a copy today.

A paramedic goes back in time to Independence, Missouri, in the year 1852, to solve a family mystery. Her quest is jeopardized when she meets a lawyer, Cullen Montgomery, who resembles the ghost who has haunted her since childhood.