Critics' Opinion:
Readers' rating:
Published May 2008
352 pages
Genre: Historical Fiction
Publication Information
Elizabeth Staveley sits in the Bodleian library, holding in her trembling hands a fragment of ancient paper. It is the key to a story that has been locked away for four centuries—the story of a British sea captain’s daughter held captive in the sultan’s harem.
Constantinople, 1599. There are rumors and strange stirrings in the sultan’s palace. The chief black eunuch has been poisoned by a taste of a beautiful ship made of spun sugar. The sultan’s mother faces threats to her power from her son’s favorite concubine, and a secret rebellion is rising within the palace’s most private quarters.
Meanwhile, the merchant Paul Pindar, secretary to the English ambassador, brings a precious gift to the sultan. As he nears the palace, word comes to Pindar that the woman he once loved, Celia, may be alive, and hidden among the ranks of slaves in the sultan’s harem. Can this really be the same Celia who disappeared in a shipwreck? And if it is, can the two be reunited?
"[T]he book never transforms into a literary tour-de-force (like A.S. Byatt's Possession), partly because the author is trying to balance too many story lines." - Publishers Weekly.
"The details regarding the sexual lives of the world's most famous kept women are explicit but delicately described." - Library Journal.
"The Aviary Gate is a hugely enjoyable novel, multi-layered, vividly depicted and a fascinating story, filled with the colors, sights and scents of Constantinople in the 16th century. This story is at the same time fast moving, complex and deeply satisfying." - Joanne Harris, author of Chocolat.
"The Aviary Gate reminds us of the fact that Katie Hickman is first and foremost a vibrant story-teller who writes mainly because of the pure joy of weaving stories, be they historical or as in this case fictional accounts. And for that, I am very grateful to her." - Azar Nafisi, author of Reading Lolita in Tehran.
This information about The Aviary Gate was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Katie Hickman is the author of five previous books, including Daughters of Britannia and Courtesans. She lives in London.
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