Book Review: The Sands of Time by Sidney Sheldon

It’s 4 am. You’re too tired to work on your project about Recurrent Neural Networks. But you aren’t too tired to sleep. What do you do?

Yes, Correct! You write a review of that book you just recently read! Nah, you just sleep.

(Well I didn’t) (And NO! It’s not the review of that great Prince of Persia Game, that I absolutely love🧡)

Sheldon’s works are usually, filled with twists, sudden developments and absurdities and this is no exception here as well. The story is based on the time of the Spanish Civil War between the Republicans and the Fascists. The center-stage is taken by 4 nuns of a Cistercian convent who were forced to elope due to a sudden military attack by the Spanish forces, headed by Colonel Acoca.

These nuns find shelter in a group of Basque terrorists, headed by James Miro, who is worthy of being the protagonist, but isn’t. The nuns are thus interwoven as pawns between the battle of the 2 forces.

The lot decides to reach their destination by splitting into different groups to evade the Colonel and the Spanish forces, thus giving birth to multiple sub plots, with each group facing their unpredictable twists. The continuous plot changing becomes somewhat confusing, but is cleverly presented by the writer. The spirited pace of the plots make the novel refreshing. It becomes lewd at some points but is kept exciting & spicy by the clever turns unfolding.

The ending wasn’t predictable at all. A happy ending was all the more surprising, but welcome. A good note to end.

Despite the significant number of characters being involved, the way in which each character is described is the novel’s biggest strength. The individuality of each character is astonishing, especially the nuns, who couldn’t have been more real and distinct. The credit goes to the writer.

But in this sea of characters, what’s missing is a favorite character, a character you straightforward love. Jaime Miro, or Megan could have been one, but I couldn’t find any. Maybe Sometimes you don’t have a favorite character. Or maybe you do, always.

All in all, an Unpredictable,” read it in one go” book, Sidney Sheldon does lives up to his reputation of a Master Story Teller.

“The difference between a rebel and a patriot depends upon who is in power at the moment.” — Sidney Sheldon, Sands of Time.

This isn’t a T-Shirt line, but is still a noteworthy one.