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    The Shivering Sands
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    The Shivering Sands
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    The Shivering Sands
    Ebook436 pages8 hours

    The Shivering Sands

    By Victoria Holt

    3.5/5

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    Currently unavailable

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    About this ebook

    "One of the supreme writers of gothic romance, a compelling storyteller whose gripping novels have thrilled millions."—RT Book Reviews

    Her sister's mysterious disappearance will lead her to a deadly secret…

    Caroline Verlaine knows something is wrong. Her sister has gone missing and no one can tell her why. The only option is to go where Roma was last seen—an estate with a deadly history.

    The Stacy family has lived off the Dover coast for generations, carefully navigating the treacherous quicksands nearby. But the sands aren't Caroline's biggest threat. Everyone here has a secret, especially the enigmatic young heir Napier Stacy. No matter where Caroline turns, the ground she walks is dangerous. And the closer Caroline comes to unraveling the truth, the closer she comes to sharing her sister's fate.

    What readers are saying about The Shivering Sands

    "The feel of this story was similar to that of Rebecca—the sort of dark, shivery, mysterious feeling. The end was WAY better in my opinion, though. Definitely a good read!"

    "This is a five-star historical, romance, mystery, psychological thriller."

    "The most suspenseful book ever, and many years later, after having read countless Holt books, I can safely say that this is her best work."

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSourcebooks
    Release dateSep 3, 2013
    ISBN9781402277504
    Author

    Victoria Holt

    Eleanor Alice Burford Hibbert (1906–1993), better known to readers as Victoria Holt, Philippa Carr, and Jean Plaidy, was one of the world’s most beloved and enduring authors. Her career spanned five decades, and she was heralded as the “Queen of Romantic Suspense.” She continued to write historical fiction under the name of Jean Plaidy and romantic suspense as Victoria Holt until the time of her death.

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    Reviews for The Shivering Sands

    3.5/5

    125 ratings9 reviews

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    • 4/5
      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 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.
    • 4/5
      I have to begin by saying that I adore Victoria Holt. She has such a gift for writing and I never expect her plot twists! I enjoyed this book so much, that I re-read it after I had finished. Her characters are wonderfully written and I can't help but love (or hate) them.
    • 4/5
      Eleanor Hibbert was a remarkable writer who wrote over 200 books under numerous pen names. She wrote historical fiction under the name of Jean Plaidy. As Victoria Holt she wrote 32 gothic romances from the 1960s into the 1990s. The Shivering Sand] is a gothic novel that takes place in the late 1800s. All of the gothic elements are there; a creepy mansion, a brooding but handsome son of the manor, mysteries deaths, and a young widow who has come to this strange family as a piano teacher. The plot twists and turns and although I had an idea who the killer was it wasn't obvious. One of Victoria Holt's earlier gothics, it was written in 1969, and has the gothic feel popular during that time.
    • 4/5
      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 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.
    • 2/5
      ??1/2 rounded down to ??

      Caroline (Caro) Verlaine, a young widow, needs to find a way to earn a living teaching piano, but at the same time her sister, Roma, and archaeologist, has disappeared while working on a ruin elsewhere in England. Her former piano teacher retires from her last job and arranged for Caroline to take it over, and Caroline is happy to move because it’s in the same area that her sister disappeared. Once there, she is swept up in the antics of a dysfunctional family with a dark past; a brother accidentally shot, a mother who had committed suicide; her students including a half gypsy love child living in the home with Edith, the young wife of the mysterious Napier, and Alice, the daughter of the housekeeper; the mad sister, once thwarted in love, of the owner of the house who paints portraits of people the way she thinks they are; mysterious lights at night and so on. Caroline’s fourth student is Sylvia, the daughter of the vicar.

      Victoria Holt was one of the authors who got gothic romantic suspense rolling, and this is one from 1969. I loved in when in high school, but it didn’t live up to my current reading likes. I neither liked nor disliked Caroline and felt that some of the other characters, such as Alice, were not particularly believable. I read this for a challenge because of the word shivering in the title.
    • 4/5
      I enjoyed the book. It kept me in suspense until the end. I kind of wish the ending was wriiten a little more in depth.
    • 5/5
      Couldn't believe it but i loved this book!!! Not at all what I had expected at the end, never would have guessed!!! I highly recommend this book. Great description, includes a old British Mansion on the coast and some good archciological info tucked in there too.
    • 5/5
      Wow I had no idea that that person would be the villain!
    • 5/5
      Wow I had no idea that that person would be the villain!