The Sleeper in the Sands

Tom Holland is nowadays best known as a historian and translator of Herodotus, but he started his career, back in the 1990s, as a novelist, favouring eerie, rather supernatural historical themes. The Sleeper in the Sands ticks all those boxes with aplomb, as it tells the story of the ambitious archaeologist Howard Carter, who is on the brink of making the most fabulous discovery of his career. As he waits for the arrival of his patron Lord Carnarvon, Carter finds himself brooding on what he can expect to find behind the sealed doorway of this unprecedentedly undisturbed tomb. Great treasures, certainly, but also dark whispers of something else. For strange papers have come into Carter’s possession, warning him of a terrible curse and show more recording a story that has been lost to the sands for millennia: the tale of the heretic Pharaoh Akh-en-Aten…

For the full review, please see my blog:
https://theidlewoman.net/2018/10/14/the-sleeper-in-the-sands-tom-holland/ show less

Not what I thought it was going to be. Abandoned after c.50 pages. Won't read any others by him.

see http://www.sfsite.com/02b/slee51.htm