Disappointing ending.

A great Historical Fiction. Written with a parallel narrative in present day London to 1599 Ottoman Haram.

Great story. Only wish I had known their was a book before this one telling the story of how the characters got to this book. Definitely worth a read.

An interesting read, not earth shattering, but enjoyable enough. I would imagine historically accurate and realistic in it's portrayal of details. A rather realistic if unsatisfying ending.

I discovered after opening this book that I had actually read it before, perhaps with a different cover, but I decided to go ahead and read it again anyhow, and I'm glad I did. I'm not always a fan of historical novels but I enjoyed this tale of an elizabethan englishwoman in the Sultan's harem ,and the intrigues and mysteries of Palace life. It was full of lush description and a lot of historical research..(some of the characters were from real life), and was something of an adventure story too in as much as we hear how a present day student discovers the existence of this story and pieces it together, visiting Istanbul and meeting new people who ultimately enrich her own life in the course of her investigations.
Does this book have Orientalist cliches?-yes, possibly, but I took it at face value as entertainment rather than a historical account..and for me it was just a really enjoyable read..

This is the second book by Katie Hickman I've read, although it's the first work of fiction by her I've read. But still in the same territory, the sex trade in history. The first book I read was Courtesans - mini biographies of five courtesans - and now this one is set in the Sultan's harem in the 1500s in Turkey. One of the main characters is Celia, renamed Kaya for the harem, who is an Englishwoman. Shipwrecked in the Mediteranean and presumed dead, she was then put into the slave trade and eventually sold to the Sultan's harem. And there she gets tangled up in all the politics, stabbings in the back, bitching and back biting that goes on in the harem. In the meantime, her original fiance, Paul Pindar, is now in Constantinople arranging trade treaties with the Sultan, and still grieving over his supposedly dead fiancee.

As well as this there is also a thin storyline set in contemporary times that runs through the book. There's not a lot to it, and to be honest, I think I would have preferred the book more if they'd just scrapped that storyline completely. Ok, it's interesting to think about what little is left of the past, but how those few objects can bring it all back to life for us etc, but this modern day character, Elizabeth, really was just pathetic and I don't see why these men were crazy about her at all. And I didn't reckon much to her persona as a supposed academic either.

So, the historical bit is the best, and it's an interesting enough story - if standard and not the best you'll ever read in your life - and also an interesting step into harem hierarchy and all the goings on that may or may not have happened. I'm maybe a wee bit disappointed because I enjoyed Courtesans a lot and had such high hopes for this book that just weren't met.

I discovered after opening this book that I had actually read it before, perhaps with a different cover, but I decided to go ahead and read it again anyhow, and I'm glad I did. I'm not always a fan of historical novels but I enjoyed this tale of an elizabethan englishwoman in the Sultan's harem ,and the intrigues and mysteries of Palace life. It was full of lush description and a lot of historical research..(some of the characters were from real life), and was something of an adventure story too in as much as we hear how a present day student discovers the existence of this story and pieces it together, visiting Istanbul and meeting new people who ultimately enrich her own life in the course of her investigations.
Does this book have Orientalist cliches?-yes, possibly, but I took it at face value as entertainment rather than a historical account..and for me it was just a really enjoyable read..

In the modern day England, Elizabeth has just uncovered an ancient document which tells the story of Celia, an English woman held captive in the Sultan's harem. In 1599 Constantinople, Celia is pulled into the scheming and intrigue of the Sultan's harem, where the Sultan's mother vies for power against the Sultan's favorite concubine. Their stories run in parallel as Elizabeth uncovers Celia's story and Celia uncovers the palace plot—but all of the intrigue amounts to little. Elizabeth and Celia are ultimately unconnected, and Elizabeth's timeline feels like an unnecessary accessory to the plot. Celia's timeline comes to an adequate conclusion, but the twists and turns along the way are predictable. Combined with lackluster storytelling, The Aviary Gate is forgettable on the whole: while not bad, it offers no redeeming value and I do not recommend it.

At first glance, this book has a number of intriguing factors which may draw the reader in: the historical "exotic" setting (if that attracts you), the concurrent plotlines, and the promise of plentiful courtly intrigue. However, each of these factors falls flat in turn. From what I can tell, the setting seems adequately researched and realistically realized, but it has no spark. Hickman does not idealize the foreign palace or the shrouded secrecy of the harem, and neither does she journey deep into its dark, inglorious underbelly. Lacking either extreme, the setting falls at some mundane, unremarkable mid point. The Constantinople storyline is frequently broken by the modern storyline, breaking the magic of the setting; worse, Elizabeth's story bogs down the text. Her struggles are cliché or else they remain unresolved, and ultimately she has no connection to and does not parallel Celia and her inclusion is unnecessary. Finally, while Celia's story is heavy with scheming and intrigue, the plot twists are predictable and Celia has little influence on the plot. The seemingly good characters turn out to be bad, all the bad characters good, and halfway through this process it already feels routine. Rather than being an active participant in the plot, Celia is usually being pushed along unwittingly by her own mindless whims or else she's just in the right place at the right time by virtue of luck alone.

When all of the book's attractions have fallen, not much remains. The characters do not inspire emotional attachment, the plot is sufficiently predictable to deter reader interest, and the writing style is littered with character's thoughts (sometimes in italics, sometimes not, they feel like the mark of immature writing) and, in this first edition, typos: in short the book offers nothing more, however meaningful or frivolous, to redeem itself. While not actively bad, The Aviary Gate is lackluster and immediately forgettable. I was disappointed, and I do not recommend it. If you do still want to read it, consider borrowing it from a local library—the book will not stand up to rereads.