Topaz Woman

It's 1975 and Cassidy Brookes is stuck in a dead-end job at a Hollywood movie studio. A testy encounter with A-list director Jeff McConnell provokes her into dusting off her ambitions to become a writer. Taunted by McConnell Cassie decides to write a screenplay to show him what she can do-but she is at a loss for a story.</P>While shopping at an antiques fair Cassie buys a jeweled brooch containing a rare Imperial Topaz. She learns the brooch was once owned by a mysterious red-haired woman who lived in Ouro Preto a fabled eighteenth-century city in Brazil known for its Topaz mines and rivers of gold. As Cassie fingers the brooch she feels a powerful connection to the red-haired woman who lived half a century before. So great is her obsession with the story Cassie quits her job and abandons McConnell with whom she is falling in love.</P>After traveling to Brazil Cassie arrives in Ouro Preto to track down the clues which lead to Amanda Savage. A child of two continents and a jazz-age rebel Amanda proved to be a formidable activist in her day as she challenged the aristocracy and their treatment of the local miners.</P>Amanda's courage blossoms in Cassie who is driven to solve the riddle of Amanda's death and bring the legendary tale of the <I>Topaz Woman</I> to light. How Cassie writes the story of Amanda Savage battles the studio and Jeff McConnell brings this romantic adventure to its exciting conclusion. </P>