Richard W. Wise, Author

The Dawning: 31,000 BC was judged an award-winning finalist in the 2023 by International Book Awards

The Dawning: 31,000 BC. Winner Literary Titan: 2023 Gold Medal

Southwestern France, 31,000 BC:

Ejil and Lada, son and daughter of a Cro-Magnon tribe—on the verge of adulthood—have begun to explore their maturing feelings. They encounter a clan of Neanderthal hunters and they and their Ice Age world are torn apart.

The Dawning tells an age-old—all too familiar—story of deadly struggle and a heart-rending tale of young love—its aspirations, pain, disappointments and triumph.

The Neanderthals, a pale-skinned people occupied Ice Age Europe for three hundred thousand years. Dark-skinned Cro-Magnons, our direct ancestors, appeared forty-five thousand years ago. Five thousand years later, the Neanderthals had disappeared. What happened when our two ancestral peoples came face to face on the ice-bound plains of prehistory?

Follow the gripping tale of two young lovers and the sweeping narrative of ancient cultures in conflict set against the fabulous painted caves of Southwestern France. The Dawning will transport you 33,000 years into our deep past. The Dawning will present you with the evocative, richly detailed, all too human saga, of our earliest ancestors.

WiseGuy: The Author's Blog

Kashmir Blues

November 5, 2023

An exceptional image of a Kashmir sapphire showing the velvety appearance typical of the finest gems from the region.

KASHMIR BLUES
By Richa Goyal Sikri. Originally published in GemGeneva Newsletter 5/11/23

When I first started collecting coloured gemstones, I came across an extraordinary book by Richard W. Wise called 'Secrets of the Gem Trade'. While there were many nuggets of knowledge embedded in the book, there were three, in particular, I continue to employ as my guiding principles. The first, 'light equals colour', referring to the variable hues of sunlight and how it impacts coloured gemstones. Mindful of this, I try to view coloured gems between 11.30 am to 2.00 pm when the light is ideally colour balanced.

The second, 'value beauty, over pedigree', meaning, before origin, the beauty of the stone will always drive value appreciation. Qualities like hue, tone, saturation, lustre, cut, crystal quality, will remain the fundamental building blocks against which value is assigned and evaluated, with origin only afterwards becoming a factor.

The third principle, 'while beauty drives demand, it's the rarity factor that drives the price.' How does one define rarity? READ ON:

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The Dawning: 31,000 BC has been longlisted for The 2023 Chaucer Book Award in Historical Fiction

November 2, 2023

The Dawning: 31,000 BC has been longlisted for the CHAUCER Book Awards for pre-1750s Historical Fiction | Chanticleer International Book Awards

These titles have moved forward in the judging rounds from all 2023 Chaucer Early Historical Fiction entries to the 2023 Chaucer Book Awards LONG LIST. Entries below are now in competition for the 2023 Chaucer Short List. The Short Listers will compete for the Semi-Finalist positions. All FINALISTS will be selected from the Semi-Finalists. Winners will be announced and recognized at the Chanticleer Authors Conference (CAC24).

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Redlined, A Novel of Boston

Somebody is trying to burn our

neighborhood down.

Vietnam combat veteran Jedediah Flynt is a young man pursued by his own demons. Like many who grew up in the generation that straddled the late 1950s and the 1960s, Flynt watched as his early expectations were upended in the cultural conflagration that swept America through the early 1970s.

Following a stint in the Marines, Flynt arrived back in the U. S. to find himself hated and reviled for his service, his nights haunted by his experiences in Southeast Asia.

After training in Chicago as a community organizer under the famous Saul Alinsky, Flynt is hired by a coalition of local churches to mobilize the residents of Boston's Jamaica Plain neighborhood into an organization powerful enough to stop the decline.

The major Boston banks have redlined the neighborhood, and the housing market has crashed. Perfectly good homes are abandoned and unsaleable due to a lack of financing. Then those properties are systematically torched. Why? When the charred body of Sandy Morgan, one of his neighborhood organizers, is found in the ashes of one of the torched buildings, Flynt swears to find those responsible and avenge her death.

The key to the arson appears to be the fate of the Southwest Corridor, the six-lane demolished remains of an abandoned section of I-95, which has become a lawless no man's land, cancer eating away at the guts of the neighborhood. With the help of the lovely Alex Jordan, Flynt's idealistic, Harvard-educated researcher, the mystery slowly unravels. Alex discovers that the burned properties are being bought on the cheap by a mysterious corporate entity.

As they dig deeper, Flynt and Alex find themselves in grave danger. After Flynt stops another attempted arson, he reaches out to an old friend, and the action accelerates. Will Flynt, Alex, and a group of local citizens be able to stop the redlining and identify and outwit the mysterious forces trying to destroy an urban neighborhood for their own gain? Buckle up and hold tight as the novel races toward a surprising, bone-rattling conclusion.

Selected Works

The Gemstone Connoisseur

Secrets Of The Gem Trade, The Connoisseur's Guide To Precious Gemstones

Called "One of the world's foremost gemstone connoisseurs," by Gemkey Magazine, Mr. Wise's first book, SECRETS OF THE GEM TRADE, THE CONNOISSEUR'S GUIDE...published in 2003, became both a commercial and critical success and is now considered a classic. The second edition, extensively revised and rewritten with 127 more pages, 11 new chapters, and 161 added photographs appeared in 2016."Richard is a great writer and storyteller. At times he is frank and to the point, while at other times there is playfulness in his writing. Sadly we work in an industry where many view education as a bad thing. Content to believe what others have told them and perpetuate the falsehoods that have existed for generations. This is an industry that is not only secretive but based on trust. Many people have been quite content to put their gains above all else and betray this trust. This industry needs the 'good guys' who are not afraid to tell it how it is. Richard Wise is one of these guys who has made it his mission, based on years of experience, to dispel these untruths and give his readers the tools they need to make informed decisions." --

Geoffrey M Dominy, World Gem Foundation - Gemmology Today Magazine

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