Forgotten Book: THE CURSE OF KINGS, Victoria Holt

William Collins, 1973, paperback, 255 pages. Cost U.K. 70p, Australia $1.95.

A contribution to a special edition of Pattinase's Friday's Forgotten Books

Moving my books around on the Easter weekend helped me unearth a truly forgotten book, and I feel quite triumphant that my copy has the same cover as this.

Blurb from the back of the book:

Ever since she was a child, Judith Osmond has cherished a romantic dream: to marry Tybalt Travers, a brilliant archaeoplogist, and help him make some wonderful discovery. So when Tybalt asks her to be his wife and go with him to Egypt in search of the Pharaohs' burial chambers, her happiness seems assured.

But once in Egypt her joy is short-lived. here in this strange arid land, the rumours of misfortune and death that surround the tombs seem all to real. And gradually Tybalt changes. From a loving attentive husband he becomes a stranger - silent, watchful, menacing....

Now I don't remember the plot of this particular book, but I do remember a time when I was hungry for whatever Victoria Holt titles I could find.
It seems though that I may have bought this in Germany while travelling in 1975 - it actually has a German book shop sticker on the back of it.

Victoria Holt was a pseudonym used by Jean Plaidy, who also wrote as Eleanor Burford, Philippa Carr, Elbur Ford, Kathleen Kellow, Anna Percival, and Ellalice Tate. Fantastic Fiction says that she used 8 pen names during her writing career, and many of her readers never twigged.