With the PBS series “Indian Summers” now running, this month we’ll stay
with the exotic and look at a genre of books that has proven perennially
popular, both with romance readers (there seem to be new Sheik books out every
month, contemporary or historical) and historical fiction fans—novels set in the
mysterious and titillating world of the seraglio.
We begin the journey with a two-book series by Zia
Wesley fictionalizing the life of a real woman, Aimée Dubucq de
Rivery. Born on the island of Martinique, young Aimée and her cousin have their
fortunes told by an old woman, who prophesies that both will become queens. The
cousin becomes Josephine, Napoleon’s first Empress. In an even more unbelievable
turn of events, Aimée becomes the favorite of a Sultan. In the first book, THE STOLEN GIRL (THE VEIL AND
THE CROWN BOOK 1) we see Aimée’s early life, from her childhood in Martinque
through the journey to Paris, where she attempts, without any luck, to marry
into the Parisian elite. Resigned to spinsterhood, she decides to become a nun,
but before entering the convent, takes ship to Martinique to visit her family
one last time. On the voyage back, her ship is attacked by Barbary pirates.
Aimée is captured and sold into slavery, ending up at the Grand Seraglio in the
harem of the Sultan. This novel and its successor, THE FRENCH SULTANA (THE VEIL
AND THE CROWN BOOK 2) offer vivid, well-researched details about life in
Martinique, the French court in Paris, and the exotic world of the seraglio,
where this naïve Westerner is first captive, then student of the arts of
seduction at the Harem School, and finally favorite of the Sultan.
Traveling back to the 17th century, we have
THE SECRET POWER OF THE
HAREM by Chavdar Milhov. At the age of six, Mehmed IV becomes Sultan in an
Ottoman Empire at the height of its reach and power. Inside this world
dominated by tyrannical men, two women struggle to control the destiny of the
empire: the young Sultan’s grandmother, Kösem Mahpeyker, who has ruled behind
the scenes through the reigns of five sultans, and the boy’s beautiful young
mother, Turhan Hatice, who becomes Queen Mother at the age of twenty. Hidden
away in the seraglio, where hundreds of beautiful girls scheme and manipulate to
gain ultimate power, the two battle for behind-the-throne control of the Sultan,
his advisors and his policies, a battle which will leave only one victorious.
Set against a vivid background of the Ottoman Empire, the novel provides an
intriguing picture of a vanished world.
Not all the great seraglios of the world were in the
Middle East. In THE SULTAN’S
WIFE by Jane Johnson, also set in the 17th century, we switch
locales from Turkey to Morocco. Fiery-tempered and cruel, Sultan Mulay Ismael
controls the lives of everyone around him, while his wife Zidana uses her evil
potions to try to eliminate as many of his offspring as possible who might
compete for power with her own children. Into this world of intrigue and danger
comes beautiful Dutch virgin Alys Swann, captured for the Sultan’s pleasure and
turned over to Nus-Nus, the Sultan’s African eunuch scribe and keeper of the
Royal Couching book. His instructions: convince her to convert to Islam, accept
her destiny as wife to the Sultan, and give him sons—or both die. So begins an
odd and enduring friendship, as Nus-Nus attempts to navigate his protégé (and
the woman he comes to love) through the deadly waters of royal intrigue, a task
that grows ever more dangerous when Alys gives birth to the sultan’s son. Filled
with vivid descriptions of Morocco (author Johnson is actually married to a
Berber) and the court of Charles II, where Nus-Nus later travels, this fictional
account of these real historical characters has the sweep, authenticity and
solid historical groundwork necessary for a compelling historical fiction read.
How much of these accounts of this hidden life are
accurate, how much invented? For a look at the actual history behind the myth,
we turn to HAREM: THE WORLD
BEYOND THE VEIL by Alev Lytle Croutier. Born in a house that had once been
the harem of a pasha, intrigued by tales about her grandmother and sister, who
had both been brought up in a harem, author Croutier decided to look for the
facts behind the legends. Using the Seraglio of the Topkapi Palace as prime
example for the organization and workings of harems everywhere, Croutier takes
us on a tour of harem life, from the Middle Ages into the twentieth century.
Brimming with details, from descriptions of slave markets, to the training of
odalesques, the opulent rooms of the favorites, the raising of royal children,
to the famed and deadly rivalries in which hundreds of women scheme and intrigue
to become a favorite and achieve the ultimate seat of power as valide
sultana, mother of the Sultan, Croutier’s expose shows us the real society
cloaked beneath the Western world’s erotic fantasy.
Ready to hear some tales of Scheherazade? Prepare to be transported to a unique
and vanished world!
Real, intense, passionate historical romance
After twelve years as a vagabond Navy wife, an adventure that took her from
Virginia Beach, VA, to Monterrey, CA, to Tunis, Tunisia to Oslo, Norway and
back, Julia Justiss followed her husband to his family's East Texas
homeland. On a hill above a pond with a view of pasture land, they built an
English Georgian-style home. Sitting at her desk there, if she ignores the
summer heat, she can almost imagine herself in Jane Austen's Regency
England.
In between teaching high school French and making jaunts to visit
her three children (a Seabee in Gulfport, MS, a clothing buyer in Houston and a
mechanical engineer in Austin, TX) she pursues her first love—writing
historical fiction.
Series: Regency Silk & Scandal | Hadley’s Hellions | Ransleigh Rogues
Leader of Hadley’s Hellions, a group of outsiders who bond together at Oxford
vowing to reform Society, Giles Hadley wants nothing to do with the earl, his
father who banished him, or his stepbrother George, who is the bane of his
existence. But he’s curious about the woman rumor says George is to marry,
daughter and political hostess of prominent Tory Lord Witlow.
For her
part, Lady Maggie finds angry rebel Giles far more fascinating than George—so
fascinating, that though she has no intention of risking her heart after losing
her beloved husband, she might just be tempted into an affair…
Buy FORBIDDEN NIGHTS WITH THE
VISCOUNT: Amazon.com
| Kindle| BN.com| iTunes/iBooks | Kobo | Google Play | Powell's
Books | Books-A-Million | Indiebound | Amazon CA
| Amazon UK
| Amazon DE
| Amazon FR
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