Anna Rasche is an American author, gemologist, and historian based in New York City. Her fiction draws on her professional knowledge of jewelry and the decorative arts, bringing the material culture and beliefs surrounding gemstones into historical narratives.
Rasche studied archaeology at Boston University and later pursued graduate work in the history of decorative arts through The New School and the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum. She has worked with jewelry collections at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and has researched jewelry provenance. While investigating medieval beliefs about the medicinal and protective properties of gems, she encountered lapidaries—texts describing stones’ supposed powers—which became a foundation for her fiction.
Park Row published her debut novel, The Stone Witch of Florence, in October 2024. Set in plague-era Florence, the novel follows a healer who uses gemstones and is summoned from exile to investigate stolen religious relics. It was selected for the October 2024 Indie Next List. Rasche’s official site identifies The Cursed Diamond, due from HarperCollins/Park Row on November 3, 2026, as her second novel. She also writes the newsletter Feast Days, which combines author updates with pieces on jewelry, art, and history.
This profile is awaiting source review; collected books are already linked below.
