Having been a recent visitor to Istanbul's Topkapi Palace and its harem, I particularly enjoyed reading Hickman's story about Celia, a young Englishwoman taken captive in the sultan's harem in the late sixteenth century.

Hickman deftly weaves together a story that takes us inside the cloistered and scheming world of the sultan's women, the intrigue of the European envoys vying for lucrative trade deals with Constantinople, and the modern world of Oxford and Istanbul as lived in by a 20-something female PhD student who is trying to unravel the mystery of whether Celia ever made it out of the harem and back into the arms of her fiancee, a wealthy English merchant sent to Istanbul by Queen Elizabeth I.

This book is a mix of mystery, historical fiction, and romance (both historical and modern) and was great fun to read. ( )

Katie Hicks novel was a change of pace for me. I adore Historical Fiction but tend to read predominately Victorian era novels. I enjoyed the exotic 16th century Turkish setting of Hick's novel. She uses a the convention of juxtaposing a contemporary graduate student (Elizabeth Stavely) doing research against that of an imagined historical 'subject.' In this caes, the subject under investigation is a young English woman, Celia Lamprey, presumed drowned at sea but actually alive and well and living as a slave in the Ottoman royal harem. Her finance, a well to do English merchant/sea captain/scholar named Paul Pindar discovers her alive in the harem and seeks her rescue. The story is actually told predominately from Celia's point of view and is rich in courtly/harem detail. I enjoyed this peek into an a world that was previously unknown to me. I did not love the 'modern day' sections that place Celia's story within a 'to be discovered' mode. I found the contemporary graduate student rather vapid and was little interested in her failed romance. I found her distracting and thought Celia's story was strong enough to stand on its own.

One other issue with this book is that the characters and language in the novel are numerous and a foreign enough to become confusing. Hicks has a short cast of characters and a glossary in the front of the book and I did find I had to continuously return to it. There are enough names/ concepts that are new that it was a necessary evil. I don't like having to flip back and forth, but I got confused enough to have to paper clip the section for referral. Don't let this keep you from reading it, if the topic is of interest. It's definitely well written and an enjoyable read.

Despite my criticisms, I actually enjoyed this peek into harem life replete with scheming concubines, palace eunuchs, and astrology, and will happily pass this title on to other readers. ( )

Well, I tried to like this book. I really tried. But I found it full of cliches and characters about whom, for the most part, I just didn't care. Elizabeth, the grad student, was particularly whiney, pathetic, and unlikeable (not to mention that the "formula" of a grad student making an important discovery has been done to death since Possession). Most of the negatives have been listed below. There's just too much going on, too many stories, most of them not very interesting and most of them left hanging. The novel is awash with Eastern stereotypes (the sly eunuch, the jealous favored wife, the aging concubine, etc.). Once you get a picture of what goes on in the harem (mostly the women bathing, plucking, and perfuming in preparation for a possible evening with the sultan), you don't really need to hear it over and over again. ( )

I received The Aviary Gate by Katie Hickman as an ARC from Bloomsbury publishers and was fascinated by the setting of the book: the mysterious, secretive, and sensual world of a sixteenth century harem.

It was quite an eye-opening experience learning of the hierarchy of the Sultan's women slaves and concubines, as well as palace protocol (eyes downcast, silence and submission, isolation), and the rituals of perfuming and adorning the body for the Sultan's pleasure.

The story alternates between the present day and 1599 as Elizabeth Stavely, a university doctoral student, researches captivity narratives and discovers a fragment of parchment with a clue that indicates that an English woman may have been captured at sea and brought to the Ottoman palace. As she travels to Instanbul to continue her search through archives to attempt to discover the fate of Celia, the narrative flashes back to Celia's tale of separation from the man she planned to marry and her experiences during a time of rebellion and intrigue in the Sultan's harem. Elizabeth hopes that her research will answer several questions: Did Paul Pindar have knowledge of Celia's captivity? Was Celia able to escape from the palace and pass through the Aviary Gate? Was she reunited with Paul Pindar?

The present day story, unfortunately, includes details of Elizabeth's own romantic troubles which detracted from the story. I skimmed through these sections and concentrated on the research developments which were much more intriguing. There were several weak points in this novel; some characters were not fleshed out enough, and the story does not neatly tie up all the threads of the plot. Overall, though, it was an interesting journey. ( )

Kitschy stereotypes aside, this book was a good read. Entertaining and filled with intrigue, while it didn't leave a WHOLE lot to the imagination, it certainly filled a weekend. ( )