The Shivering Sands

My husband recently took me book shopping for my birthday and in a moment of nostalgia, I bought a vintage copy of Victoria Holt's The Shivering Sands. And let me tell you, it was the best birthday present I gave myself. I truly, thoroughly, enjoyed it and I've had a book-hangover from it all week. I've read at least one of Holt's books when I was younger but I have no idea which one it might have been. I know that I won't forget this one! I actually tried to slow the experience down and just revel in it for awhile. Perhaps my favorite book this year.

Let me paint the picture for you. An old family manse, sitting on an ocean-side cliff, overlooking several galleons half-sunk in the quicksand. The family? Just a shell of a man, grieving show more the suicide of his wife, the death of his golden boy at the hands of his other son, and the few family-relations who remain. There's the auntie who paints and predicts the future, the vicar's wife who tries to create the future she wants for her family, oh, and the ghost. That's right. No one knows if the spirit is one of the lost family or of the Roman remains recently found on the estate. And into this framework steps our heroine, not necessarily a governess but a music teacher and she has her own secrets. Like the battle between the ocean and the sands, each interlude between the family and the pianist reveals more tragedy and more treasure.
If you enjoy Gothic romance and Byronic heroes, do yourself a favor and read The Shivering Sands. show less

I have been a lifelong Victoria Holt fan, and as I re-read this book, I remember why. She has a twist of a phrase, a view of life that endures and draws a reader in. Is it improbable the main character would be where she was? Absolutely. That she could hold a position that seemed, at best, contrived? Despite that, you walk alongside, seeing things through this character's eyes and feeling her emotions. Danger lurks at every corner. Who killed Caroline's sister? Who killed Napier's wife? Why are they trying to kill Caroline? Suspects around every corner bring you to the satisfying conclusion.

Ms. Holt's stories continue to entertain, even all these years after her death.

Caroline takes the post of music teacher at Lovat Stacy to secretly try to find out why her sister disappeared but I can't say she seems to do much about it. She is terrible at keeping her secret and hardly seems to investigate at all, which is fine because it seems the main point is for her to fall for yet another Gothic romance bad boy. Maybe I am getting old but the apparently rotten and evil man who is just misunderstood and needs the love of a good woman trope has worn a bit thin for me. There were some good parts but the red herrings were a bit thick and the final reveal came a bit out of nowhere, with plenty of loose ends still left behind. Yet, I still keep reading these Victoria Holts because they are exactly what I think they show more will be. show less

I read this for the Crime Fiction of the Year (1969) Challenge, a meme housed at Past Offences.
In my younger days I read lots of Victoria Holt, and so I wanted to see whether for me this title weathered the test of time.

Perhaps unsurprisingly I found the plot developed much more slowly than it would in a more recently written novel. There are very heavy Gothic overtones right from the beginning: the black sheep of the family who accidentally murdered his elder, popular, handsome elder brother, banished to Australia but now summoned to return by his dying father to marry his father's ward; the mysterious disappearance of Caroline's sister from an archaeological dig; a building destroyed by fire where lights now show at night.

One of the show more aspects of the plot that has interested me is the actual time setting of the story. I have come across a reference to the vicar being appointed in 1888 so I am assuming it is all late 19th century. There are other factors that reinforce this: the curate goes off to Africa as a missionary, the main mode of transportation is horseback or trap, and there are no mentions of the dislocations that World War One will later cause.

So is this crime fiction? It is a question I constantly asked myself as I was reading. Certainly crimes have been committed - there is no doubt right from the beginning that Napier killed his brother Beau, accident or not, and these days that would have led to a homicide trial, rather than a retribution exacted by his father. And there are two other unexplained disappearances. But this is much more Gothic romance, closer to Daphne du Maurier and Georgette Heyer rather than Agatha Christie. The ending made me think of Edgar Allen Poe.

And here is an author that eventually led me on to crime fiction addiction. show less

The suspense elements are excellent in “The Shivering Sands”, which I believe is set in the late 1880s. The disappearance of an archaeologist and later a pregnant woman are hard-to-solve mysteries.

I suspected several characters at one time or another, had a few ideas for motives, but most of which were wrong because of the clever plotting. I did begin to work out the culprit a few pages before all was revealed, but the identity of said character was never obvious.

I like the way the author includes small scenes every so often that seem irrelevant until later on in the narrative. She also maintains an eerie tone throughout the novel.

All characters are well-crafted. I particularly enjoyed the dialogue exchanges between the heroine and show more Napier.

I feel the book would’ve been better still if there had been a greater amount of conflict , plus certain perilous situations seem to be resolved a little too quickly. But on the whole this is a very good read. show less

I got this book from my Mom when I went to visit her in Oregon last month. It belonged to my Grandma Betty.

It was definitely a story that improved as it went along. It started out very slow and was full of melodrama from beginning to end. However, once mysterious things started happening to the main characters in the story, it became more interesting; and, while I did figure out the main culprit before he/she/it was revealed, there was a little twist I wasn't expecting.

I could easily picture this as a cheesy 1960s budget film, but I did enjoy the bit of fluff after a very long travel home from England this past weekend.

I loved this book! One of the things I especially liked about it was that although I thought I had guessed the ending, I was completely wrong.

Caroline Verlaine, recently widowed, goes to a big old house called Lovat Stacey, which is by the sea. Ostensibly she has gone there to teach music to the young girls who live in the house, but she has a secret, which is that she has also gone there to discover the truth behind the disappearance of her sister, who was last seen working on an archeology dig at the premises.

When she is there, she discovers that the house and the family within have more than a few secrets and tragedies in their past. She finds herself strangely draawn to Napier Stacy, the disgraced son of the family.

As Caroline show more pursues her quest for the truth, she finds that she could be placing herself in danger.

A real gothic romance, which I thoroughly enjoyed. This is the second book I have read by this author, and having loved both of them, I definitely want to seek out more. show less