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Anna Rasche’s historical fiction sparkles with authenticity.
Before she was an author, Rasche spent much of the 2010s toiling in Manhattan’s Diamond District, where her new novel, “The Cursed Diamond” (Park Row, out now), is set. The book owes a substantial debt to the gritty slice of Midtown and her years working there — setting up displays of shimmering baubles, delivering precious trinkets to artisans to repair and burnish, and even looking out for peddlers trying to sell her shop fake goods.
“That was maybe a monthly occurrence,” the 38-year-old said, recalling the hustlers, scammers and (sadly) innocent rubes who would walk up to her counter with an ersatz ruby or questionable heirloom to pawn. “Those were still the days when people would walk around with all the bootleg DVDs and Gucci belts to sell,” she added, setting the scene. “But you would just say, ‘Sorry, not for us,’ and they would go on their way.”
The new book follows Jenny, a young runner in the Diamond District on the hunt for a rare — and possibly evil — bauble owned by a scandal-ridden Gilded Age heiress. It’s based on Rasche’s own experience running jewels for the antique specialist Gray & Davis (which has since moved to the West Village), as well as a real-life gem she’s never seen: the Brunswick Blue, a brilliant sparkler rumored to have been cut from the same stone as the Hope Diamond, and that disappeared at some point in the 1870s.
“I thought that was a really exciting idea for a story,” Rasche said over tea at Blake & Todd, a popular hangout among Diamond District workers. “And I wanted to connect it to 47th Street, just because of my experience here. Most of the diamonds that come into the United States come through this block. It seemed like a logical connection.”
Rasche grew up in Maine, “where big fancy jewelry was not part of the day to day,” but studying archaeology at Boston University she fell in love with ancient jewelry.
She wanted to learn how to make similar styles, so, in 2010, she moved to New York City and enrolled at Studio Jewelers LLC, a trade school in Midtown East. She went on to train as a diamond grader at the Gemological Institute of America’s laboratory in the Diamond District. “Basically, you’re looking at diamonds under a microscope all day, assessing their quality,” she said. “And on lunch breaks I would walk up and down 47th Street.”
During one of these strolls, she came across Gray & Davis, which had a “fabulous window display of antique jewelry, just beautiful Victorian gold pieces and Art Deco engagement rings,” she recalled.
She went inside and struck up a conversation with the owner, who told her she was hiring. “I got the job and never looked back to my laboratory days,” Rasche said.
Gray & Davis was tiny, so its three employees all did a bit of everything. As the youngest and newest staff member, Rasche ran a lot of precious stones around the city.
For example, she explained, maybe Gray & Davis would source an antique stone and then build a custom setting. “To do something like that, you have to work with a diamond dealer. You have to work with the bench jeweler, the polisher, the stone setter. If you’re going to plate it, that’s a separate workshop too. So there might be three or six different craftspeople whose hands have touched this one ring before it’s ready for the customer,” she said. “You just find yourself ping-ponging all over the block, going up elevators and down into basements and around the corner.”
Rasche found the environment thrilling, if intimidating at first. “The Diamond District can have a surly exterior,” she said, noting the brusque walkers, tough-guy security guards, and aggressive salesmen shoving advertisements for gold in the faces of tourists. “When you first meet people, you’re like, ‘Are they pissed off at me?’ Then once you get to know them you realize, no, that’s just their demeanor.”
Did she have any run-ins with guys who resembled Adam Sandler’s degenerate gambling-addicted jeweler in the 2019 film “Uncut Gems“?
“Oh, you definitely hear stories [about people like that], but no,” she said. “You do get people coming in and trying to sell you stuff that’s fugazi [bogus] … But in my experience, the majority of business was legit.”
Rasche spent over five years working in the Diamond District, getting a masters degree in design history and curatorial studies during that time. She later did research at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and authenticated jewelry for The RealReal. In 2024, she published her first novel, “The Stone Witch of Florence,” about a healer who uses the power of gems to help save lives — and solve a mystery — during the black plague.
Though she lives in Park Slope, she still visits the Diamond District every few months to help source a treasure for a client, or get a watch repaired for a friend.
“I loved working here with all the jewelers,” she said. “It’s like you’re visiting your friends and making beautiful things together, and everyone has their part. It’s a special place.”
