‘Shifting Sands: Book One’ Review

Despite how I felt about the module Experimental Writing in my second year of uni, I absolutely love experimental fiction. I get a certain type of thrill when I’m reading a book and find the author has decided to play around with the form, giving us a different side to the story.

They could have included lists, or text message chains, or even messed with how the words are presented on the page to show a certain type of madness or create a certain effect. Books that I think do this especially well are the A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder series and Holly Bourne’s Spinster series. So when my uni friend Kate was telling me all about the creative side of her PhD – an unstable ebook – I was HOOKED.

What is an unstable ebook, I hear you ask! Kate explains in more detail on her blog, but the whole premise basically revolves around the fact that the chapters we see in Shifting Sands do just that – they shift. With each wave, we will see different characters, and there are only ever three characters “active” at one time.

This whole concept FASCINATES ME. It completely shifts how a reader interprets the story, and depending on which wave you read first, your reading experience isn’t going to be the same as someone who, say, started reading the wave that came before or after. It will also shift how we understand the overall story and plot, which I am so excited to see!

I am – obviously – very biased here. But Kate is a phenomenal writer, and I was so excited to see the project she’s been pouring her heart into. The three characters that I read about in the first wave were Aamarin, Keiziro, and Kishon. They were each fascinating in their own ways and let us explore more about the story world of Shifting Sands through their differing perspectives. I’ll be very interested to see if we get to learn more about them in future waves, or whether we get a completely new set of characters all together!

I loooooved the world-building. I was completely fascinated by the temple, the magic water, and the life of those outside the temple! My only complaint would be that the first wave was too short because I really wanted to learn more about the story world and what was going to happen to all of these fascinating characters. Kate’s characterisation was spot on, too. Even though we only got to read three stages of these characters’ lives, Kate effortlessly sucker-punches you right in the feels.

However, we will be getting a new set of characters around March when the second wave comes in, so I am very excited to see how this changes the story. Shifting Sands is going to be a story that grows over time as we get to see different things in different ways, and I am very curious to see how this affects our overall understanding of the story.

By which case it feels unfair to pass an overall judgement when we’ve only just started to learn about the story and its characters, but it’s obvs getting a well earned 5/5 from me. I can’t wait to see what else Kate has in store for us! If fantasy is your thing, you really have no excuse – go get yourself a copy of this ebook, dude. You won’t regret it.

You can learn more about the Shifting Sands project over on Kate Stuart’s blog, or you can head over to Amazon to buy yourself a copy. Seeing as it’s only £1.50, you’ve got nothing to lose!