A Passion For Gemstones - Worldbuilding My new Island of Sorellina romance series

No secret that I'm passionate about gemstones. From their origins in the earth to their cutting and setting in beautiful jewellery it's a subject that fascinates me. So I was determined to include some aspect of them into my new Island of Sorellina romance series. Wasn't hard when the first story includes billionaire Dario Denaro. The Denaro fortune is based on gem mining and jewellery retail so I get to indulge my passion in words, which is very exciting. I'm planning a series of blog posts about the background of the stories, so I thought I'd start with the gems mentioned in The Cursed Princess.

I tried taking some pictures of my own pieces but sadly taking pictures of reflective material is difficult so I've taken examples from around the web and tried to credit where I can.

Denaro Enterprises own several small mines on Sorellina which in the past have yielded mostly gold and obsidian. The gold mine is all but played out, but they still mine obsidian which is a kind of volcanic glass-like rock that is usually black, but occasionally other colours present. Inclusions in the rock can result in colours such as red, blue, orange or yellow, but these are rarer. Most people might be familiar with snowflake obsidian which is exactly as described, dark and glassy and looking as if peppered with snowflakes. Strange uses of obsidian apart from jewellery and sculptural objects include as an object of trade in eras past and as cutting blades in surgical scalpels due to the fact that it can be honed to a sharp edge. I image Denaro Enterprises use their obsidian to carve mostly into exclusive perfume bottles and objects such as bowls and spheres. Here are a few examples.

An obsidian and glass bowl.

Obsidian sphere

Sapphire is a form of corundum and found in various colours ranging from shocking pinks to dark blues. A well known and popular gemstone from the same family as ruby. Red corundum is named ruby and any other colour becomes a sapphire. In The Cursed Princess, Dario is India on the trail of a new source of corundum with a colour said to rival Kashmire blue when his truck leaves the road. A hard and highly wearable gemstone, precious colours include Kashmir blue and Ceylon blue. There is also a colour change variety of sapphire.

A kashmire blue sapphire, image credited to http://uk.images.

Ruby is another of my favourite gemstones, the definitive colour being pigeon blood red, which if you can add Burma to the provenance will make for a valuable gemstone. As said above the red form of corundum and to me the embodiment of passion and love in a gemstone (despite what the diamond marketers would have us believe). A very rare and precious ruby necklace makes an appearance in The Cursed Princess.

My impossible to photograph Edwardian ruby ring with Chester assay hallmark. Nice bit of bling...

Dario Denaro is woken at three in the morning by his mine manager after the discovery of a new gemstone that is not only trichroic (showing three different colours depending on the viewing angle) but also has colour change properties (the colour changes depending on the type of light hitting the gemstone.) Combined with being single mine (ie, only found in one location on earth) this would be a very exciting discovery indeed. Gems mentioned in reference are Tanzanite, Zultanite and Alexandrite. I'm lucky enough to own tanzanite, sapphire, ruby and alexandrite, but haven't got my mitts on a zultanite yet. So, what's so special about these particular gemstones?


Tanzanite set the gem world astorm when it was discovered in the 1960's in the Merelani hills in Tanzania and shrewdly marketed by Tiffanys. Tanzanite starts out life as zoisite which is a dull green/brown in it's natural state (although occasionally a natural zoisite can be quite dazzling with a mixture of beautiful greens, blues and purples. I own a beautiful faceted one but couldn't photograph it to do it justice) but when heated can produce the most stunning blues and purples. Henry Platt of Tiffanys saw a few faceted examples and coined the name tanzanite which was of course more marketable than zoisite. In The Cursed Princess Dario coins the Term Elanite for his new gemstone thinking that marketing will love it. Tanzanite has a lot going for it as an exclusive gemstone. Only found in one small area on the earth, it's trichroic which means good samples show flashes of blues, violets and reds and it was originally brought to the public attention by one of the premier jewellery retail outlets, Tiffanys. Graded by an A star system, with quadruple AAAA being the most exclusive right down to ungraded. Tanzanite is a beautiful gemstone and one of my favourites. They have no idea how much is left in that small area and there is already talk of it being a one generation gemstone. For a Tanzania connection in my story I had Dario climb Mount Kilimanjaro the year he became heir to the Denaro fortune.

tanzanite ring - could find a linkback to credit but the image is used for illustration purposes only

Alexandrite was named for Tsar Alexander, reputedly being discovered on the day he came of age so the lore goes in the Ural mountains some 200 years ago. It's a type of chrysoberyl that benefits from rarity (russian alexandrite is all but mined out and commands top dollar on the market) and from being a colour change gemstone, just like the Elanite in my story. My alexandrite is probably my favourite piece in my collection and changes from ruby red in incandescent light (candllight is good for showing this) to emerald green in natural daylight. Other sources of the gem include mines in India, Africa and Brazil. I imagine Denaro's has an exclusive collection of antique and vintange Russian alexandrite for their clients.

Original image credited to http://www.gehnabazaar.com/gemstones/28/alexandrite.html

Zultanite is another colour change gemstone with the added benefit of rarity and from being mined from a single deposit in Turkey where to date the only gem quality version of this gemstone has been found. It's a form of diaspore renamed Zultanite by Zurat Akgum, another example of a gemstone being given a marketable name, like the Elanite in my story. Diaspore has been found elsewhere in the world but apparently not in gem quality, yet. Zultanite colour changes goes from champagne in natural daylight to pinkish in in candescent light.

Zultanite, example from www.thejewellerycafe.com

And of course we can't forget the ubiquitous Diamond. A form of carbon, one of the hardest gemstones on the planet, lending it to both industrial and jewellery uses, and not quite as rare as the marketing men would have us believe, flawless diamonds nevertheless command top dollar in the market. Graded on the four c's, which stand for cut, clarity, colour and carat weight. Given a lot of prestige by a marketing campaign that associated diamonds with love and courtship. Without going into politics, it's one of the most successful marketing campaigns to date with one of the most memorable slogans - a diamond is forever. I'll just add that heapings of guilt and cartels were involved in making diamonds the stone of choice for engagement rings and leave it at that. The Elizabeth Taylor diamond recently sold at Christies for nine million dollars. Of course, a spectacular diamond makes an appearance in The Cursed Princess.

The Krupp diamond renamed The Elizabeth Taylor Diamond by Christies
For more information and the source of this picture go to http://famousdiamonds.tripod.com/kruppdiamond.html

I've thoroughly enjoyed writing the gemstones into the story and Elanite will be making another appearance when Stella Denaro gets her own story. She will be visiting the mine on Sorellina to find out what's scaring the miners and why they're refusing to extract any more stones till the "demon of the mine" is sent on its way. Of course, she has a history with Mauro, the mine manager who doesn't believe the legends of the guardian of the gemstone....


The Cursed Princess is available from amazon.com and all other amazon outlets. When I have the official cover I'll be releasing it on other outlets like Barnes and Noble, iphone etc via smashwords.