Endlessly manipulative and clever, she carefully arranges the downfall of her rivals and endears herself to the Sultan, who places her at the center of the Empire's power. Among them is Gülbehar, the Sultan's submissive favorite and mother of his heir Julia, the daughter of an Italian lord, kidnapped when she attempted to flee Venice with her lover and Hürrem, a Tartar girl from the Russian steppes, sold into slavery.Īll three women are beautiful, but Hürrem is the most dangerous - ruthless in her desire to rule the Harem and, ultimately, Süleyman himself. And at the heart of his palace is the Sultan's vast Harem, the domain of hundreds of scented, pampered women - some wives, some concubines, some merely slaves. In Constantinople there is only one ruler: Sultan Süleyman the Magnificent, Lord of Lords of this World, Possessor of Men's Necks, Allah's Deputy, absolute ruler of the mighty Ottoman Empire. Please enable JavaScript if you would like to comment on this blog.From the author of the critically acclaimed When We Were Gods comes a dramatic, unforgettable novel of cruelty and passion, set in the great Harem of the Ottoman Empire. Overall a very well-written, albeit depressing, book. Falconer's point at the end is that her hate for her captivity and for Suleiyman led her to deliberately leave her husband (she predeceased him) with an incompetent heir after manipulating him to kill every heir (and friend) capable of ruling the empire.
I made the mistake while reading this of flipping through a history of Istanbul and found out that the book is essentially factual, and that the evil wife Hurrem is better known to history as Roxelana.
The infighting among his harem (basically two women, although a third is discussed) eventually resulted in his murdering his best friend and his eldest son, and giving his empire over to his wife Hurrem's son Selim the Sot, which the book posits wasn't his son anyway. Falconer tells a really engrossing story about sultan Suleiyman the Great and his difficulties with his two kadin (concubines) which eventually brought massive grief to the Ottoman empire.
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