Kutchinsky’s Egg: A Family Story of Love, Loss and Obsession

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***As serialised in the Guardian***‘Extraordinary’ SOPHIE ELMHIRST, author of Maurice and Maralyn‘Sparkles with passion, greed and mystery’ OLIVER BULLOUGH, author of Butler to the World ‘Spellbinding’ LAURA MILLER, Slate‘A jewel of a thriller’ CAROL WOOLTON, author of If Jewels Could TalkWhen she was ten years old, Serena Kutchinsky’s father Paul was consumed by a wild dream. Heir to the legendary jewellery company House of Kutchinsky, he longed to create a jewelled egg more beautiful than any of Fabergé’s masterpieces. It would be the largest and most spectacular in the world. Standing two feet tall, made of solid gold, dripping with rare pink diamonds and housing a tiny enamelled library, the egg was astonishing. But when he failed to sell it, everything started to unravel. The House of Kutchinsky collapsed, Paul’s marriage fell apart, and within ten years he was dead. The egg was seized by its creditors and disappeared without trace. For thirty years its location remained a mystery, until it began to obsess Serena, too. Why did her father risk everything for this outlandish creation, and where in the world was it – valued by now at £30 million? Intent on finding answers, she traces a story that begins in London’s East End, with the arrival of her great-great grandparents as Polish-Jewish immigrants, and takes her to the other end of the world. It’s a journey that transforms her understanding of her father, her childhood and herself. ‘A brightly painted tale, with everything you could want from a book about a dynasty of jewellers’ SUNDAY TIMES