Several years ago, educational consultant Gloria Donoghue walked into the Blue Nile bookshop on Georgia Avenue, Northwest. She was in town on business from Long Island, N.Y., where she had spent two decades working in special education.

“They had some wonderful books, jewelry and other wonderful things,” Donoghue recalled in a recent interview with The Examiner, sitting in an office in upper Northwest, drumming her long, lacquered nails on a dark wood desk.