This book started to take form when an 18th-century silver spoon washed up on the beach near author Rosalind Laker’s home. It bore the proud mark of a London silversmith—a woman silversmith by the name of Hester Bateman. Fired with curiosity, Ms. Laker researched the fascinating Bateman family. During the Georgian period, the Batemans rose from potential ruin to being leading craftsmen who were known to have that elusive Silver Touch that marks a master workman.
In creating her book—which is equal parts romance and historical novel—the author took the bones of what was known about Hester Bateman and fleshed them out into a passionate story that is rooted in the solid, workaday world of the English craftsmen.
The woman silversmith begins life as Hester Needham, an orphan of twelve years who is taken in by her uncle and his shrewish wife. For half a dozen years, the pretty girl waits tables at their London tavern. She is careful not to entangle her heart until the day she meets handsome John Bateman. An apprentice goldsmith, he has many months to run on his contract before he can be a free man and do as he pleases.
