The Snake-Charmer: A Heroine Who Struggles To Overcome An Overwhelming Desire To Dance With Snakes: Diamond-Hunting In South Africa
- ISBN-10
- ISBN-13
- 9798545015016
- Pages
- 262
- Language
- English
- Published
- 2021-07-28
- Author
- Merrilee Sherrange
Description
As literature, this is a preposterous pile of Victorian sentimental novel cliches, including identical twins of mysterious parentage, mistaken identity, a Bad Man and more than one Man with a Secret Past, gypsy clairvoyance and snake charming, exile to the diamond mines of South Africa, and of course lots of True Love, but it's engagingly written and the heroine has some grit. It might be good summer reading if you like old-fashioned genre fiction. Its convoluted and colorful plot turns on questions of heredity and atavism: the ancestry of the Waring twin brothers and of Elma Clifford. Elma comes on her mother's side from a line of gypsy snake dancers, and she displays a periodic urge to dance wildly with a feather boa in her bedroom. A murderous judge, multiple mistaken identities and scenes of tribal life in South Africa decorate this extraordinary novel, which is certainly a testament to the author's versatility and grasp of the popular market.
