THE NECKLACE

In this dual time period novel, a rare Indian necklace links two generations of the Quincy family, the brothers who vied over a bewitching Jazz Age woman and the current generation’s black sheep who must decide which of her grasping relatives to trust when she inherits it.

Ambrose Quincy bought the necklace while away on his grand tour, an extravagant and dramatic gift to match the charisma and beauty of the woman he thought was waiting for him to return and finally propose to her. But Ambrose’s gamble that May would wait turns out to have been a terrible mistake; he comes home to find that May has married his brother Ethan, the “good” Quincy who is devoted to helping their robber baron father with their coal empire. Ambrose gives May the necklace anyway, as a gesture of good will, but whether he intends it to or not, his gift rekindles their love affair. Ambrose has always longed to escape his overbearing father, and when May admits she is his, he implores
her to reject the suffocating, conventional life of a Quincy and come away with him.

Nell Quincy is May’s granddaughter, a lawyer who lives in the Pacific Northwest. She grew up being taught to stay away from her old-money, East Coast relatives. But when Ambrose and Ethan’s sister dies having pointedly named Nell as the sole heir of the necklace, she learns that being on the inside can be more isolating than being a black sheep.

As the family gathers with the young lawyer Louis Morrell to dismantle the estate, Nell finds that he stakes are very high. The spectacular necklace’s shadowy provenance could mean that it does not even rightfully belong to Nell. Her family certainly doesn’t think it does. As an elite lawyer, Nell can navigate the legal vagaries surrounding the necklace, but as a Quincy, she is becoming increasingly distracted and confused by decades-old secrets and suspicions. Could Louis Morrell be her ally, or is he just another outsider with his own agenda?

Alternating between the past and present, The Necklace is the story of two love affairs linked by a precious and rare Indian necklace, the origin of a family secret that must come to light if the Quincy family’s hold on its women is ever to be broken.

Claire McMillan is the author of Gilded Age and The Necklace. She grew up in Pasadena, California and now lives onher husband’s family farm outside of Cleveland, Ohio with their two children. She practiced law until 2003 and then received her MFA in creative writing from Bennington College.