Sidney Sheldon's The Tides of Memory

By Sidney Sheldon and Tilly Bagshawe

New York Times bestselling author Tilly Bagshawe, who delivered the late beloved author’s brilliance in Sidney Sheldon’s After the Darkness, is back with an addictive, edge-of-your-seat thriller filled with shocking twists, money, power, and betrayal involving an influential family and the beautiful and formidable woman at its center whose dark secrets can destroy them all.

The conservative party's newest superstar, Alexia De Vere has worked hard to realize her political ambitions. The brilliant and ruthless wife of wealthy aristocrat Teddy De Vere, Alexia relishes her power and the control it gives her to shape and destroy lives.

Yet success has also demanded sacrifice. Her daughter, Roxie, a bitter young woman confined to a wheelchair after a failed suicide attempt, blames Alexia for ruining her life. Alexia's dashing son, Michael, is risking the family's good name to jump-start his entre-preneurial dreams. Thankfully, Alexia has Teddy, her devoted husband who will stop at nothing to protect her.

But beneath Alexia De Vere's gilded life and formidable facade lie secrets that are ugly, dirty, and deadly. When long-buried mistakes of her youth begin to resurface, old hatreds are rekindled and Alexia finds herself on the brink of losing everything—her power, her family, and even her own life. Now the woman who rose so high is on the brink of a perilous fall. For when the tides of memory rise, the only thing that might save her is the truth. . . .

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Release date: Apr 9, 2013
• ISBN: 9780062073440

Sidney Sheldon

The late novelist and screenwriter Sidney Sheldon remains one of the world's top bestselling authors, having sold more than 300 million copies of his books. Are You Afraid of the Dark? is his most recent in a long line of huge bestsellers. He is also the only writer to have won an Oscar, a Tony, and an Edgar. The Guinness Book of World Records heralds him as the most translated author in the world.

Reviews for Sidney Sheldon's The Tides of Memory

[ladyliz-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Alexia De Vere is Britain's new Home Secretary, which means she is universally hated, but when the secrets of her past start to catch up with her, it's not just her political reputation that's at risk.

Admittedly, I was a little tentative going into this one, as I had just read one of Sidney Sheldon's older books, and I was afraid that I would not be excited by the characters. Boy oh boy was I wrong! Whereas the characterse seemed flat in my previous (one) experience with Sidney Sheldon's work, in "The Tides of Memory", the characters came alive and had new levels of depth! Tilly Bagshawe was able to maintain Sheldon's level of intensity, but take the characters to a whole new level for a doubly enjoyable piece of fiction.

We begin with the announcement of Alexia's new position as Home Secretary, and then bounce back to the 1970's to a key moment in the life of a seemingly unrelated character: Billy Hamlin. We find that Billy Hamlin, deep in a seemingly schizophrenic obsession, has fixated on Alexia and her family. Meanwhile, other characters seem to be plotting against Alexia from the very onset of her appointment, including her boss and potentially her secretary. Then things begin to go very wrong for Alexia, beginning with the death of the family dog.

The twists and turns in this story definitely kept me on the edge of my seat in a level of suspense I haven't felt in a long time. I even found myself wondering about the characters, how they were connected, and who was responsible for the various mysterious events that kept cropping up. It wasn't until the last 20 pages or so that it all began to fit together, yet it managed to never feel anti-climatic.

The charactes had depth and feelings, too. None of them seemed to be particularly flat in any capacity, not even the minor characters. All the characters seemed to have an agenda, which added to the suspense, and made me second guess myself as I was trying to predict who was the real "bad guy". I think my personal favorite would have to be Sir Edward Manning, Alexia's personal secretary. Sir Edward is a fierce old queen who likes to use his power to have his way with the young guys on staff, but has the tables turned on him and finds himself in a situation where he needs to betray his boss or be outed, yet he seems to remain loyal to Alexia as much as possible. I would have loved to have seen more of him in the story.

The only flaw I saw (besides a small number of grammatical errors that seem to be in every book these days) was that one or two of the side-stories seemed to fizzle out a bit. As we neared the end of the book (remember, it doesn't start to come together until the last 20 pages or so), some of the characters just seemed to disappear out of the storyline without their involvement being totally explained. Most notably, there's just one small line tossed our way to acknowledge why Alexia's boss was plotting against her.

Overall, though, I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys a good who-dunit story or a psychological thriller. Actually, I think I would recommend this to anyone who likes a good story! It has intense characters, killer suspense, and very visual descriptions, all of which suck you into the story.

[ashishg_50 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Book is fairly good suspense thriller with good mystery and fairly well closure in the end. At some parts, glimpse of secret is let out but not too long before it is revealed in the book anyway. Story is simple and revolves around 5-6 primary characters.Reason this books gets on "average" rating is because:(1) for this genre, this isn't as unputdownable or breath holding as it can be(2) there are way too many convenient coincidences which propel the story(3) some small but key parts are left unexplained[SPOILER]Like what's deal with Prime Minister and who he was talking to? Why would he want Alexia murdered by the bible man? How can such duplicity of character can remain hidden in Lucy from her own family (never burns a toast!)? How can a rich housewife make all these strange decisions as primary shareholder of HM Capital without her husband or other people bothering? And arrange for people to be murdered? How can Michael has Lucy as sugar mommy and when did he find that opportunity?

[safiah shakur · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I had a great time reading it...!! thrilling, suspense , romantic...too many genre in one book.

[JamilJuliana · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Cant put the book down for the day or night.. Totally amazed by the storyline..

[starbungei · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

u are the best author have ever come across I love or books