The Aviary Gate: A Novel [Paperback]

Katie Hickman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 9, 2009

“[This] magical, engrossing…novel of intrigue and forbidden love manages to be both cerebral and entertaining. With all the intricate detail of historical nonfiction and all the pace of romantic drama, this is beautifully written stuff.”—Glamour (UK)

In Oxford’s Bodleian Library, Elizabeth Staveley has found a fragment of ancient paper that may hold the key to a story hidden for four centuries: a British sea captain’s daughter held captive in the sultan’s harem.

Constantinople, 1599. I n the sultan’s palace, the chief eunuch has been poisoned by a beautiful ship made of spun sugar, and a rebellion is rising within the palace’s most private quarters. A British merchant, Paul Pindar, brings a precious gift to the sultan and discovers that the woman he once loved, Celia, may be alive, hidden among the ranks of slaves in the sultan’s harem. Can this really be his shipwrecked Celia? And if it is, can they be reunited?

Steeped in mystery and sexual intrigue, The Aviary Gate transports readers to exotic sixteenth-century Constantinople, offering the rarest glimpse into the forbidden confines of the sultan’s harem.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Sixteenth-century sexual politics inside the Ottoman sultan's harem come to life as Hickman (Courtesans) takes her fascination with fallen women into the fictional realm with this historical novel featuring exotic locales and erotic situations. Linking past and present heroines, the story follows Oxford researcher Elizabeth Staveley as she uncovers the 400-year-old story of Celia Lamprey, a sea captain's daughter engaged to merchant-turned-diplomat Paul Pindar when she's lost in a shipwreck. Celia doesn't drown, of course. She becomes a concubine-in-training in Constantinople, where Paul serves as secretary to the British Embassy. When the embassy sends a gift to the sultan (a ship made of spun sugar), Paul finds out that Celia is alive and well. Meanwhile, the sultan's chief black eunuch has been poisoned and as his favorite concubine battles for supremacy with his mother, both women draw Celia into their intrigues. Despite all this, the 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. Hickman creates richly described imaginative moments, but like Celia's early encounters with the sultan, the excitement is never consummated. (June)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

'A magical, engrossing read that takes us inside a 16th century harem - and into a world populated by scheming, exotic characters With all the intricate detail of historical non-fiction and all the pace of a romantic drama, this really is beautifully written stuff' Glamour 'Hugely enjoyable fast-moving and deeply satisfying' Joanne Harris 'Lie back on your ottoman and relax. Katie Hickman will take you to a magical land, the Topkapi harem in Istanbul in Istanbul in 1599 There are luscious descriptions of costumes, of silk robes and mother-of-pearl twinsets, of ropes of jewels this is a box of Turkish delight' Independent 'Teasing, erotic, suspenseful and expertly done' Daily Mail

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Product Details

• Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: Bloomsbury USA (June 9, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1596916303
• ISBN-13: 978-1596916302
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.5 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (29 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,103,471 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Intriguing story of a young English captive in the Sultans harem, June 4, 2008

By 

Modern Blue Argonaut - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: The Aviary Gate: A Novel (Hardcover)

In The Aviary Gate by Katie Hickman, graduate student Elizabeth Staveley is researching captivity stories from the late 16th century when she comes across a four hundred year old manuscript tucked inside of a book in the Oriental Library Reading Room at Oxford University. Knowing the treasured, never before told story she is about to uncover, she transcribes the manuscript before turning it over to the library staff.

While tied up in a frustrating relationship with a suspected womanizer, Elizabeth takes off from Oxford and flies to Istanbul to further research the story of Celia Lamprey, the daughter of an English sea captain who dies at sea leaving her to eventually be sold into the harem of the Sultan of Constantinople. While a controversial member of the Sultans harem, she discovers that her fiancee, Paul Pindar, whom she was supposed to marry prior to being sold into captivity, is in fact in Constantinople as the secretary to the English ambassador to deliver a gift to the Sultan thus opening English trading opportunities.

The story is woven between the present day and the year 1599 in Constantinople (now present day Istanbul). The story of the secret life inside the harem has been well-researched and very intriguing, although the present day story of Elizabeth lacked a little intrigue. Other notable, fascinating characters in this book are the Valide Sultan (Sultan's mother), the black eunuch guards, and Jamal al-Andalus, an outstanding astronomer. Overall, this was a very rich, exotic, and interesting read, especially since I enjoy historical fiction.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Just So So, August 6, 2008

By 

Gwendolyn Dawson "Literary License" (Houston, Texas United States) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Aviary Gate: A Novel (Hardcover)

The Aviary Gate intertwines the story of modern Oxford researcher Elizabeth Staveley with the 400-year-old story of Celia Lamprey, a sea captain's daughter assumed to have died in a shipwreck but actually held as a concubine in the Sultan's harem in Constantinople. Celia's fiance, an English merchant, also happens to be in Constantinople serving as secretary to the British Embassy, and a rescue attempt ensues. Hickman recreates the world of the Sultan's harem in vivid detail, and this exotic setting is the best aspect of The Aviary Gate. The other nice touch is the ending. Without giving anything away, Hickman resolves the historical story of Celia and Paul with grace and restraint uncommon in many of the other historical books that are so popular right now. On the downside, Elizabeth and Celia are not particularly likeable or interesting as protagonists, though Celia shows more gumption and strength of character than Elizabeth, who continues to moon over an obviously commitment-phobic boyfriend. Also, some of the dialog in the historical story is overly modern and jarringly anachronistic. Overall, the interesting setting and the masterful ending make this book a worthwhile read.

20 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars I was craving a book high and got a bad reaction to the story, June 6, 2008

By 

Lilly Flora "by Lilo Drandoff" (Portland, OR) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Aviary Gate: A Novel (Hardcover)

I'm not sure why I seem to be doomed to try and seek out books I really loved again, only by different authors and with different plots, like they've been reincarnated. I guess I'm chasing that experience you have when you find a really good book-the kind of high that leaves you envious of all the people who have yet to discover the treasure you have propped up in your lap. Yes, I admit it. I, Lilly Flora, am a story addict (drug of choice historical fiction.)

This is how I ended up with this book, despite the lukewarm reviews. I was hoping to find something similar to "The Fourth Queen" by Debbie Taylor (so wonderful!) and got instead some kind of weird cross between "The Secret History of the Pink Carnation" by Lauren Willig (decent) and "Harem" by Dora Levy Mossanen ( so horrible and with the incest and child abuses.)

"The Aviary Gate" is a novel with two stories. One is set in the modern day, starring Elizabeth, a grad student chasing down captivity narratives for a philosophy thesis when she comes across a fragment of a document relating to a Celia Lamprey who was presumed to have drowned in a shipwreck but may have actually survived to be sold as a slave to the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire. Elizabeth has an intuition about the fragment and a feeling about the story (and a hateful boyfriend to get away from) so she heads to Istanbul to see what she can see.

The other half of the novel is the story of Celia in 1559, locked behind the harem gates in the Empire's capital with one other survivor of her attacked ship, a young nun named Annette and Celia's fiancé Paul, a merchant who has been in Constantinople on a diplomatic mission which seems to consist of waiting for a suitably impressive gift to give to the Sultan to arrive from England so trading rights may be secured. Needless to say, neither one of the lovebirds knows the other is there....but then through an almost impossible once in a lifetime lucky break Paul finds out. Unfortunately, Celia's current position means she might as well be dead as she belongs solely to the Sultan and there is no way out.

Will Paul and Celia find each other? Will Celia escape the harem? Will the scandals and secrets and plots in the harem ever make sense to the reader? Will Elizabeth do any actual research or just get mystic feelings about the past? Will she get over her crappy boyfriend?

They say it's not good to mix certain drugs together and I think the same applies to books. Though I'm sure the plot of this novel was an original idea, and not a bad one at that, Katie Hickman wrote a book about white women in harems, which my book lust sensors picked up on but it affected my brain like a bad mix of a book I loved (The Fourth Queen) and one I pretty much hated ("Harem.") Add that in to a plot that's going nowhere for the first two hundred pages, a bunch of obscure references to nightingales which eventually turns out to be not nearly as important as one thinks and character reactions that make no sense and you get....well a book I'll never be addicted to.

Despite wanting to love it (oh so much) in the end I didn't even like "The Aviary Gate."

Long story short, I wouldn't prescribe this book to anyone (unless maybe you enjoyed "Harem). Two stars.