Why a Booktrail?
1833 – There are Secrets in the Sands. She was a slave. He was her master. Both of them long to be free…
Secret of the Sands
What you need to know before your trail
The British Navy are conducting a survey of the Arabian Peninsula. Despite slavery having been abolished, It is as rife as it ever was. Zena is just one of the people being offered for sale in the market. She has been torn from her remote village and subjected to a long and arduous journey across the desert to Muscat.
Lieutenant James Wellstead meanwhile is desperate to find out what happened to two of his fellow officers who have gone missing in the desert. When he goes in search of them, he comes across Zena and she becomes his slave. But this is no ordinary master and slave relationship and this is no ordinary story in such extraordinary circumstances.
Travel Guide
The Empty Quarter – Rub’ al Khali
“There is no landscape on earth as changeable as the desert”
The Arabian Peninsula during the early 1800s was both a fascinating and dangerous place to be according to the events which take place in this novel.
Britain fought a war with France over the Arabian territory and for the right to claim rights to sail there, trade and even sell people. People torn from their families, their homes, everything they have known and to be thrown into such turmoil and goodness knows what else
Slavery is brutal and human rights non existent.
The heat and the tension can be felt from each page – The oriental markets of Muscat teem with spices and aromas and in contrast the heat of the desert and the danger of the budding relationship between master and slave is as unpredictable as the desert itself
“In the scramble for global dominance every scrap of advantage to be had over the French is vital and too many ships have gone down of late due to inadequate maps”
Wellstead and Zena are based on real life historical characters but the novel is a ficitonalised account of what events and situation would have been like. Letters between Wellstead and James can be found in The National Library of Scotland Wellstead lived in Molyneux Street in London.
Destination: Muscat, Empty Quarter Departure Time: 1833
Hope you enjoy your book trail of Secret of the Sands with Sara Sheridan
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