Customer Reviews

Sands of Time (Zebra Historical Romance)

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Desert sheikh Khalil is determined to save his son from a mysterious sickness. His only hope is to travel into the future to find a doctor who can cure him... Golden-haired American doctor Chelsea Browne was in Saudi Arabia in 1993 helping the poverty-stricken Bedouins. When a violent sandstorm sweeps her back in time, she finds it hard to believe--in fact, since she barely speaks the language, she thought there was just a miscommunication. In a time/place she considered barbaric, justice is swift & cruel, & independence/outspokenness is deemed 'unwomanly'. She ends up alienating practically everyone, but manages to save the kid. Thankfully the 'magic' that brought her eventually enabled her to understand the local dialect. When Khalil becomes attracted to her despite her 'unwomanliness,' she wonders if she can ever go back home again.

Ms. Valentine took pains to differentiate Bedouins from our notions of oil-rich Arabs. She also tried very hard to neither romanticize nor stereotype with the real actions/attitudes of such an exotic & mysterious people. Unfortunately, while she succeeded in this, I felt that it compromised the 'romance'--I mean, Khalil is nearly always curt/brusque past the point of rudeness whenever dealing with Chelsea! Once you get past that, the story can actually be quite good.