The Sultan's Harem, Colin Falconer

Book Review: What can I say!? The characters are amazing, the plots are colourful and energetic, the backdrop of history and flavors of the exotic are intoxicating! This is a book rich in language, flawlessly executed. A must read!

I'm reviewing this book months after I read it so I can't remember all the details, but I do remember how intricate it was in customs, colors and backgrounds of the period.

I do remember how much I enjoyed reading it, and I know that should the opportunity make itself available again I would read it again!

As with most fictional novels that have to do with Harems, this book does have adult content. For those of you who prefer your fiction to be sensored.

Book Synopsis: Falconer, author of Feathered Serpent (2002) and When We Were Gods (2000), stirs up a potent brew of splendor and misery in this page-turner set during the reign of sixteenth-century Ottoman sultan Suleyman I, called "the Magnificent" in the West. As seen here, Suleyman is a competent ruler with a fatal flaw: an obsession for Hurrem, his favorite concubine. Embittered by slavery, a "living death," Hurrem will stop at nothing, even the murder of her own sons, in her drive for power and revenge. Caught up in the intrigue are other characters, both historical and fictional: Gulbehar, the mother of Suleyman's heir; Ibrahim, Suleyman's trusted Grand Vizier; Julia, a Venetian who is taken captive by pirates and winds up as one of Suleyman's 300 harem girls; and Abbas, the eunuch in charge of the harem, who loved Julia in his youth and paid a terrible price. Plot twists, an exotic setting, and vivid details compensate for some wooden dialogue. This peek behind the walls of the seraglio will seduce lovers of large-scale historical fiction. Mary Ellen QuinnCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

You can purchase this book at http://www.amazon.com/Sultans-Harem-Colin-Falconer/dp/1400083125/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1241219174&sr=1-1