Spellbinding and 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.
Mystery, suspense, and romance are important elements of this production, but it's sensuality that predominates as Hickman takes us deep into the politics of the sixteenth-century Topkapi Palace harem in Istanbul. There are two plots, the 1599 romance between Celia Lamprey, shipwrecked and turned into a harem concubine, and her English merchant suitor, and a much weaker present-day plot that finds Elizabeth Staveley driven to understand Celia's history. The latter story fades as Josephine Bailey leads us through the intricacies of harem life. She metes out sensory details with an elegance that gives power to scents and sensations. Employing varying emotional tones and a variety of accents, she helps listeners understand the secrecy, subversiveness, and survival mechanisms of the clashing harem women. S.W. (c) AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine
Digital Rights Information
OverDrive WMA Audiobook
Burn to CD:
Permitted
Transfer to device:
Permitted
Transfer to Apple® device:
Permitted
Public performance:
Not permitted
File-sharing:
Not permitted
Peer-to-peer usage:
Not permitted
All copies of this title, including those transferred to portable devices and other media, must be deleted/destroyed at the end of the lending period.
