Katie Hickman

This is a rattling good read. It's quite a gossipy account of the lives and times of five of the better-known courtesans living and working in England and France from the 18th to the 20th centuries. To say it's 'gossipy' is to underrate it, however. Hickman's style is tremendously readable, but she's resesarched her subject matter exhaustively. The courtesans themselves, and the wide social spehere in which they mixed is described in detail and sympathetically. I came to the last page show more reluctantly, feeling I'd learnt a lt about the social history of the times, and of the lives of women in particular. show less

I listened to about half of this on audio book before there was a tech issue and I moved to an ebook instead. It's a tremendous amount of scholarship presented in a meandering, fascinating, respectful and eye opening way. I love that this history covers so many of the different untold stories, that it tries hard to give us the catastrophic ecological and genocidal contexts while honoring the source material and individual accounts. It's also possibly one of the most moving books I've read on show more the subject of Native American decimation and the tremendous loss that America suffered in allowing Westward expansion to destroy cultures, communities, and ecosystems. That makes the book sound like a downer -- it's not. It's just got a lot to say and is very evocative in language and narrative. Very well done. show less

This is wideranging study of the role and experience of British women in India from 1600 to 1900. It is interesting to see how different that experience was over the timeframe. The image that springs to mind is that of the imperial Raj, and yet that was not the initial experience at all.
Telling the stories by their own diaries, letters and memoirs makes this a very immediate experience. the book is arranged in chronological order, with different chapters within each timeframe looking at show more different experience, be that individual women, or women undertaking a similar activity. The interaction of the Britich women with their Indian counterparts was especially interesting. The change in attitudes of the two parties is also portrayed, the 1st Indian uprising being far more predicatable an event when the lead up of the previous couple of hundred years is taken into account. Not that it necessarily excuses the treatment of women and children at Lucknow & Cawnpore, but it does become less inexplicable with a more rounded understanding of the situation.
The author writes well and usually manages to make her material work for her, some of the women she uses are fabulous characters and she allows them to speak their mind. I also liked that at no point does she refer to the women by their first name alone, as she states in her introduciton "I know of no male historian who refers to Warren Hastings, as Warren". It's a case of double standards and she refuses to apply it. The author is also not afraid to let her thoughts and opinions show as well, some of the more personal comments and asides are very witty and don't detract from the tone of the work.
This is also one of those dangerous books that has lots of cited sources, as well as other books for more details about specific areas and people. This was a worthwhile read and lives up to the intriging title. show less

Elizabeth Staveley is a graduate student with a somewhat fractured love life. Her current research project uncovers a story from Constantinople in 1599 where English merchant Paul Pindar discovers that his betrothed, Celia Lamprey, whom he thought dead in a shipwreck, is living in the enclosed Harem of the Sultan. Elizabeth travels to Istanbul to pursue the story, and take a break from her unfaithful lover, in her quest to discover the fates of Paul and Celia.

Elizabeth's story is show more intertwined with the ancient story of Celia living in the Harem and her discovery of the merchants who traveled to Constantinople with a gift for the Sultan - an exquisite musical clock. Since the clock was damaged in transit, the traders must spend extended time in the city and with a forbidden peek into the women's quarters, Paul is alerted to Celia's presence there. Celia longs to break free, however, she is trapped as a pawn amid the power struggles between the concubines, the Haseki (the Sultan's favorite) and the Valide (the Sultan's mother). Her every move is watched, her every word reported and Paul seems as lost to her as if she had died in a watery grave.

The Aviary Gate is a captivating and richly detailed combination of historical and modern day fiction. The stories of Elizabeth and Celia are expertly intertwined as both heroines relentlessly seek knowledge, as well as freedom and of course, love. The sights, scents, and sounds of Constantinople come alive with Katie Hickman's descriptive prose and the reader is offered a rare glimpse into life in the Sultan's harem as well as the world of the merchants from England. The characters are expertly crafted, and like Celia, the reader is bound to be caught up in their drama, never knowing who to fully trust. Overall, this was a highly intriguing and well written book. show less