The Aviary Gate [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.

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.

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.

› Go to Amazon.com to see all 31 reviews  3.5 out of 5 stars