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    Desire
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    Desire
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    Desire
    Ebook269 pages4 hours

    Desire

    By Amy Wallace

    5/5

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    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    The future of Lily van Velsen, San Francisco pearl "doctor" and gemologist, looks assured, given her recent engagement to her goodnatured colleague Alan Purdue. But once she begins reading the diaries that recount many of her ancestors' illicit romances and their relationships with demon lovers, she is driven toward a dark destiny of her own, in the form of an affair with artist Johnny Penthe and a yearning for the opium that can calm her spirit. Only when thus "purified" can she cut the "pearl of Celebes," which carries a curse or blessing for its owner. The perfect sphere inside a natural pearl is revealed by the skillful peeling away of the layers that hide it--and this is also how it is with Wallace's haunting concoction of stories within stories in this unusually compelling first novel. (The daughter of Irving Wallace, her previous efforts include The Prodigy , a biography). Itself like an opium dream, the book hypnotically pulls the reader into its mysterious erotic core, never taking the cheap or easy way. Depicting the obsessions that drive people to fulfill or deny their hearts' desires, Wallace demonstrates that the answer can come in the shape of sacred or profane love--or, sometimes, a rare blue pearl.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherCrossroad Press
    Release dateMay 29, 2011
    ISBN9781458023476
    Unavailable
    Desire
    Author

    Amy Wallace

    Amy Wallace is a writer based in California. She splits her time between magazines and books. Her magazine work has appeared in GQ, Wired, The New Yorker, New York, Esquire, Vanity Fair, Details, The Nation, The New York Times Magazine, Elle, and other national publications. Two of her profiles—“Hollywood’s Information Man” (Los Angeles, 2001) and “Walking Time Bomb” (New York, 2019)—have been National Magazine Award finalists. An archive of her work can be found at Amy-Wallace.com. In 2014, she collaborated with Ed Catmull, then the president of Pixar Animation and Disney Animation, on his New York Times bestselling book Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration. Her second collaborative book, this one with former CEO of General Electric Jeff Immelt, is Hot Seat: What I Learned Leading a Great American Company.

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    • 5/5
      Desire by Amy WallaceStory of a pearl doctor. I love pearls and enjoy reading about them.Lily's uncle handed her the book-the one that holds all the secrets to the jewels. The woman had died and he wanted to know more of what she said on her death bed.The legacy had come from her relatives of days long gone. Letters from a woman in a convent, gave birth, child was adopted and the father tries to kidnap the baby and is killed. The woman in the convent is out of sorts...Her husband to be, Alan is also in the jewelry field. She is able to design broaches and necklaces with certain gems that really appeal to the rich. He's pressuring her to get the pearl her uncle has locked up, she can doctor it up and they can become rich.Her uncle is dying, so time is of the essence. Confusing at times because you can't figure out if the entry is about her or an ancestor that she's reading about.Loved hearing of all the information about real and cultured pearls and legends that surround them.I received this book from National Library Service for my BARD (Braille Audio Reading Device).