Sidney Sheldon’s Books

Sidney Sheldon’s Books

This is my totally biased recap of all the Sheldon books I’ve read, including the people and places they remind me of. (Oh, free time. :-) Forgive me if I forgot a lot of details, since I’ve read some of these three or four years ago. There are 18 books in all, but there are 5 that I haven’t read yet.

*Some spoilers ahead. :-)

1. Are You Afraid of the Dark?

- Reminds me of: Gempyl Evangelista. I borrowed this from her, before she left for Canada the summer of Senior Year.

- I don’t remember the names of the characters, but I know they were two women brought together by the deaths of their husbands who worked for The Firm that invented “Prima,” a technological breakthrough that allowed human beings to control the world weather. I remember that the two women eventually defeated the antagonists (a backstabbing governor, I think, and the standard scheming rich guy.) They also destroyed Prima, since it could be used to conquer the world. But there was a nice twist at the end... Prima had a twin, hidden in some remote island. So, it was like there should be a part two.

2. The Sands of Time

- Reminds me of: Carla Arciaga, who used to be Carla Bravo in elementary. She was prone to name changes even then. Parental issues. Anyway. She lent this to me during the summer of sophomore year. I still have the details because I copied them. See, I really liked this one.

- The title came from the quote,

“Lives of great men all remind us,

That we can make our lives sublime,

And departing, leave behind us,

Footprints on the sands of time.”

- This is my favorite historical novel. I swear, this one’s REALLY good. The characters were: Jaime Miro, a Basque Nationalist, fighting against the Republicans who refused to give them equal rights; Lucia Carmine, the daughter of a Mafioso who masqueraded as a nun after her father was captured; Sister Graciela Pinero, a beautiful woman with a troubled past and abused childhood; Sister Teresa, the oldest nun, who had a beautiful voice, a plain face, and major paranoia; Sister Megan (Patricia Scott), who turned out to be an heiress to a large fortune; Felix Carpio and Ricardo Mellado, fellows of Miro and loyal companions; and Amparo Jiron, the traitor who caused Miro’s capture by his mortal enemy, Colonel Ramon Acoca. It was such a beautiful novel, filled with daring adventures, historical facts, narrow escapes and twists and turns that leaves the reader begging for more. The end? Hmmm... I don’t want to write it. Hahaha. Too good to spoil for people who haven’t read it yet.

- Author’s note. (The book’s prologue. I actually copied it. Seriously, this is one of the nicest prologues I’ve ever read.)

“This is a work of fiction. And yet…

The romantic land of flamenco and Don Quixote and exotic-looking senoritas with tortoiseshell combs in their hair is also the land of Torquemada, the Spanish Inquisition, and one of the bloodiest civil wars in history. More than half a million people lost their lives in the battles for power between the republicans and the rebel Nationalists in Spain. In 1936, between February and June, 269 political murders were committed, and the Nationalists executed Republicans at the rate of a thousand a month, with no mourning permitted. One hundred sixty churches were burned to the ground, and nuns were removed forcibly from convents, “as though,” wrote Duc de Saint-Simon of an earlier conflict between the Spanish government and the Church, “they were whores in a bawdy house.” Newspaper offices were sacked and strikes and riots were endemic throughout the land. The Civil War ended in a victory for the Nationalists under Franco, and following his death, Spain became a monarchy.

The Civil War, which lasted from 1936 to 1939, may be officially over, but the two Spains that fought it have never been reconciled. Today, another war is being fought with bombs, bank robberies to finance the bombs, assassinations and riots.

When a member of ETA, a Basque guerilla underground group died in a Madrid hospital after being tortured by the police, the nationwide riots that followed led to the resignation of the director general of Spain’s police force, five security chiefs, and two hundred senior police officers.

In 1986, in Barcelona, the Basques publicly burned the Spanish flag, and in Pamplona thousands fled in fear, when Basque Nationalists clashed with the police force in a series of mutinies that eventually spread across Spain and threatened the stability of the government. The paramilitary police retaliated by going on a rampage, firing at random homes and shops of the Basques. The terrorism that goes on is more violent than ever.

This is a work of fiction. And yet…”

-- Sidney Sheldon, The Sands of Time

3. If Tomorrow Comes

- Reminds me of: Carla Arciaga, again. She also lent me this one.

- This is a novel that would make a really good Hollywood movie. Charlie’s angels, eat your heart out. Haha. The heroine is Tracy Whitney, and the story started out when her mother killed herself because of a bad business deal. She wanted to get her revenge so she barged into the home of Anthony Orsatti, the man who cheated her mother, with a gun. But it backfired. He even framed her for the loss of an expensive painting, a Renoir or a Monet, I think. She went to jail and lost everything she had, including her fiancé. In the prison, she was molested, threatened and made miserable by the other inmates, until she learned to fight for herself. She wanted to escape from prison, and she figured that the easiest way would be to get close to the warden. The warden, whose family lived in the jail grounds, assigned her to take care of his small daughter. Tracy meticulously planned her escape, via the laundry. But, when the appointed time came, there was an accident. The warden’s daughter fell into the lake outside the prison border. She made a choice and jumped into the water to save her... except she didn’t know how to swim and passed out. Rescuers found them and the warden, supported by everyone in the prison system and the public, awarded her freedom. Once out, she planned to get back the things she lost... but fate had other plans. She met Gunther Hartog, an old man who turned out to be responsible for a lot of robberies. He made her his protégée, and she became an expert in looting museums and banks. Then, on one of her missions, she met Jeffrey Stevens, a con artist. At first, they tried conning each other... But they soon realized that they met their match in each other and worked together. The charm of this particular novel lies in their adventures, individually and together. I won’t go into details anymore, since I don’t remember all of them. But I can tell you that this book has stunts worthy of applause from James Bond himself.

4. Tell Me Your Dreams

- Reminds me of: Kimberly Trix Lee back during second year. She bought this one first. I followed like three weeks later. I think we both bought it from the NBS near JRU. Hahaha.

- A heart stopping novel about one woman with Multiple Personality Disorder (although nowadays, MPD is termed as “Disassociative Personality Disorder” instead.) Her name was Ashley Patterson... But the other personalities were Alette Peters (a painter from Italy) and Antoniette Prescott (a singer with a British accent.) It was great because in the beginning the reader had no idea that she had a mental disorder. Antoniette, or Toni, killed several people, mostly her boyfriends. Alette was the innocent girl in the story, the softer side of Ashley. Ashley, of course, was in the middle of everything. It was written from three points of view and when the MPD was revealed, it was like that was when it really began. Ashley Patterson was eventually brought to court... Just before she was sentenced to die, her lawyer, whose name I don’t recall, proved that she was mentally unstable. She was sent to a mental institution, and was released when the doctors determined she was cured—or so they thought.

5. Morning, Noon and Night

- Reminds me of: A masquerade party, because of the cover.

- I don’t remember much (tsk, tsk, must read this again...) But I remember it’s about the death of a billionaire and the drama because of his last will. A daughter turned up and no one was sure if she really was the daughter. I think it turned out that she was a con artist. I think I read this during first year. Why don’t I have photographic memory?

6. Nothing Lasts Forever

- Reminds me of: the garage sale I bought it from. For php 20. Three years ago.

- It’s about three women doctors who struggled with their careers because of the then male-dominated medical society. They met because they were roommates. Two of them were quite smart (academically) but one used her “gender” to get the grades on her transcript. Paige Taylor was the one who inherited a million dollars from her patient she performed euthanasia on. (She got accused of murder.) Kat Turner was the one who got involved with the mafia. And Honey Taft was the one who graduated without actually studying. I think, after much medical and legal drama, Kat Turner was the only casualty. Again, I don’t have a very good memory.

7. The Doomsday Conspiracy

- Reminds me of: Cristina Manejero. She let me borrow it. Sophomore year.

- This one made me a fan of aliens. It was about an alien spacecraft that crashed into a desert (was it Nevada?) Accidentally, a group of tourists found it. One by one, they had to be killed. Or something like that. The aliens in this book were pretty cool... They grew like vegetables. Hehe. I don’t remember that much anymore.

8. The Other Side of Midnight

- Reminds me of: That garage sale three years ago. I love good bargains.

- This is one of the more unforgettable ones. The characters were Noelle Page, a stunning woman from the fishing village of Marseilles, who went to Paris to escape from her bleak future. She met pulchritudinous Larry Douglas, a pilot for the US air force. He promised her that he would marry her, but it was a joke. Cruel, much. The bad thing was that Noelle was pregnant with his child. She was so mad at him that she gave herself an abortion with a coat hanger. She didn’t die. A doctor friend helped her. Next scene. I don’t remember how she met Constantin Demiris, but he was a millionaire, one of the richest men in the world. A Greek shipping magnate who was incredibly generous to people who helped him, but he never forgot an offense. Vengeance was his middle name. Anyway, he fell in love with Noelle. Noelle, on the other hand, (using Demiris’ money) kept track of Larry. Next scene. Katherine (I forgot her maiden name) was a smart and quick-witted woman whose path crossed with Larry Douglas during a casting for a war movie that Larry auditioned for. They got married. Next scene. Constantin Demiris hired Larry Douglas upon the scheme of Noelle to which he was not privy. Noelle wanted to get her revenge... But it backfired, and she fell in love with him again. Silly girl. Next scene. Together, Noelle and Larry plotted to kill Katherine. Katherine, on the other hand, lost her mind before they got to her and jumped into a lake. They didn’t kill her, but they were charged with murder. During the trial, Demiris was there. He seemed like he was supporting Noelle, but he actually manipulated the defendants’ lawyer to incriminate them further. Noelle and Larry were sentenced to die by firing squad. A nice twist: Katherine was alive, thanks to Demiris. He placed her in a convent, to be cared for by the nuns. She had amnesia.

9. Memories of Midnight

- Reminds me of: Chito Lapitan. He gave this to me as a Christmas gift (2007.)

- This is the sequel to The Other Side of Midnight. Basically, it starts with Katherine Douglas, who still had amnesia, but was slowly regaining her memory. Demiris hired her in his company to keep track of her. He knew he had to kill her if she started remembering too much... I mean, his plan for revenge against Noelle and Larry only worked because everyone thought that she was dead. If she turned out to be alive, well... that would be a problem for Demiris. Bad for business. Anyway, when he realized that Katherine already had a clue about who she really was, he assigned someone to kill her. (It was vague at first because there were three men who seemed like they were going to do the job.) Demiris’ wife, whose name escapes me, found out about the plot to kill her and called her to warn her. But she didn’t get to answer it... The call was received by this weird character in the book, but I forgot his name. He was an authentic misanthrope. He remembered everything by phone numbers, addresses and statistics. (Like, if you said “Greece,” he’d tell you how many people live there, latitude, longitude, everything.) Anyway, being a misanthrope, he didn’t tell Katherine. He actually kept it to himself, because “he wanted to see if he was right about who the murderer was.” Luckily, weird guy’s therapist, who was coincidentally Katherine’s love interest, found out about it and rescued her. (The killer wasn’t one of the three men suspected, but Demiris’ “young” baggage handler. Turned out he was sick with something that prevented growth and made him seem like a teenager, which was a pretty good cover.) Meanwhile, remember Demiris’ wife? She killed herself and made it look like Demiris did it. Thus a nice investigation that led to court. Napoleon Chotas, Demiris’ lawyer (and, to me, the best lawyer in fiction) literally came back from the dead. Demiris, when he thought that his lawyer was trying to extort money from him, had his house burned. But he survived, albeit the severely burned skin, and for some reason defended his client. He got him acquitted, but for a price. All of Demiris’ fortune had to be transferred to him. The end? Not yet. Demiris got into Chotas’ car for a talk... Chotas told him that he transferred the money to the convent where he first left Katherine... and drove the car off a cliff.

10. The Naked Face

- Reminds me of: Chito Lapitan. He lent me this, sometime during the senior year.

- Sheldon’s first novel. It’s one about psychoanalysis... I think the protagonist’s name is Dr. Judd. All I remember is (sorry, I think I was stressed out when I read this) that he thought he was becoming paranoid because someone was stalking him. It turned out that he wasn’t paranoid at all, and that someone was trying to kill him. I think it ended with the psychoanalyst actually killing his assailant.

11. A Stranger in the Mirror

- Reminds me of: The garage sale, again.

- This one stars Toby Temple and Josephine Czinski, who later changed her name to Jill Castle. Josephine was a poor Polish girl tormented by discrimination and physical pain. In her early days, she sought refuge in movies and later decided to run away from home to become a movie star. Toby Temple, on the other hand, was a young boy with a penchant for comedy who also ran away from home because he got a local girl pregnant. They both went to Hollywood. After a whirlwind of disasters in their own lives, Toby rose to success as a comedian, while Jill struggled with bit roles in movies. Then Toby met Jill and he fell in love with her. That time, Jill was not interested at all in him because she was busy with trying to get roles in movies (by sleeping with directors and producers.) But Toby didn’t know that, of course. Eventually, they got together and... more disasters. Again, I won’t go into detail. All I want to say is that this book made me understand that there are really very few people in the world who are truly evil, and that most things that people do are just spawned by their experiences, needs and wants. There’s always a reason for everything, even though reasons are pretty hard to decipher. This one was a really good read.

12. The Stars Shine Down

- Reminds me of: Anne Fernando, who lent this to me a week ago.

- This book is about Lara Cameron, who was born and raised in Glace Bay by her father who was the biggest jerk in the world. He was a drunk, lazy man who let Lara take care of the boarding house he was supposed to be managing. This boardinghouse was home to a lot of electricians, carpenters and other workers. They became Lara’s family. Then she carried out her plan of creating her own building, with the help of her friends. From that building, (her net worth became 3 million dollars when she was 21 years old) she moved to Chicago and built there too. She had an empire. But Chicago wasn’t enough, so she also made her empire in New York. Now, she did all this by her own means, which were pretty impressive but... well, she cheated and manipulated a lot of people. For a long time, there was nothing on her mind but “more, more, more,” and her business partner, whose name I forgot, was there through it all. Love interest? None. But there was a guy, older than her, named Paul Martin, who was a friend with benefits. He did a lot of favors for her and knew all her secrets. Then she met Philip Adler, classical pianist who was constantly on the road performing. She followed him all over the world, and eventually they got married in Paris. Which angered Paul Martin. But much to Lara’s chagrin, Philip could not settle down, since his life was his music. One night, a mugger held him up on a street and injured his left hand, hindering him from playing the piano. Thus, he stayed at home (read: hermit.) It turned out that it was Lara’s business partner, secretly in-love with her, who ordered the injury to Philip. Then Lara’s “crimes” caught up with her and in a legal proceeding lost her empire. She would have gone to jail if Paul Martin testified, but he remained a friend and didn’t. The end? Lara saw an empty lot and started thinking of building again.

13. The Master of the Game

- Reminds me of: The house in Cavite where I found it, and the eight consecutive hours that I spent reading it. Also reminds me of Ate Karen Legion, who was the first person I knew who read it too.

- The title came from the sentence “After everything she did, is Kate Blackwell the master of the game?” which is written on the back cover.

- In my opinion, this is the best Sidney Sheldon novel. I won’t retell it here, and I couldn’t if I tried. The book features five generations of people in a whirlwind of money, greed, power, control, pain, revenge and, ultimately, love. The book went from Africa, to the States, to the lowest and highest places on earth. The central character is Kate Blackwell, a woman who lived her life controlling others... her son, her business partners, her friends, her enemies, her grandchildren, her great-grandchildren... The novel began with Kate’s parents, who met in Africa during the fight for diamonds... I can’t even find words to describe what happened in Africa then. The way that the story was told made the characters seem so... alive. From then, the story kept on getting more complicated and more fascinating. Her son, whose name escapes me, was one of the most affected by his mother’s manipulative nature. (Read: he went crazy.) Kate’s grandchildren, twins Eve and Alexandra, turned out to be polar opposites... like two facets of the same diamond, with Eve’s facet dipped in blood. (That’s the cover, by the way.) The characters in this book are some of the most amazing fictional creations ever. Kate Blackwell manipulated around her... But in the end, the only one she couldn’t manipulate was herself.

These are the ones that I haven’t read yet:

14. Windmills of the Gods

15. Rage of Angels

16. Bloodline

17. The Sky is Falling

18. The Best Laid Plans