Shifting Sands

the long version

For Vita Landseer and her daughter Susanne, life at Little Hammer is rather a come-down after their elegant existence at Grange Hill - that which ended abruptly when Vita's husband ran off leaving a mountain of unpaid bills behind him. Squaring her shoulders against humiliation and social disaster, Vita opens a second-hand couture agency. Susanne, a gifted horsewoman, looks for a more fulfilling career - and a more deserving partner than the opportunistic Nigel Danvers, a man who dropped her as soon as her inheritance disappeared. What better than a cruise down the Nile to lift their spirits? At Aswan an aristocratic Egyptian joins their party, bringing with him the flavour and grandeur of Egypt's past, and lifting Susanne into magic beyond the view of their historian guide. England slips further away, but neither has any idea of what lies ahead ...