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.

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. 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. 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.

All three women are beautiful, but Hürrem is the most dangerous—ruthless in her desire to rule the Harem and, ultimately, Süleyman himself. 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. It is his obsession with Hürrem—not his enemies—that in the end costs Süleyman his allies, his sons, and finally his dynasty.

Bestselling author Colin Falconer offers an irresistible glimpse into a world of intrigue, sensuality, and violence, where an empire can be controlled not by the might of its king but by the women hidden behind the Harem walls.

This is really the story of three women. Gülbehar, the sultan's favored concubine and mother of his son, the next in line for the throne, Julia, a kidnapped Italian noblewoman who finds herself in the sultan's harem and soon in mortal danger, and finally Hürrem, a ruthless, red-headed Russian who hoodwinks and deceives the sultan to turn him away from Gulbehar and over to her side.

Insanely jealous, deceptive, cunning, and irresistibly beautiful Hurrem soon has no trouble convincing the sultan to break numerous traditions on her behalf and schemes to make her son the next sultan. As Hurrem's victims mount and the sultan's power grows fainter and fainter it soon becomes apparent that Hurrem is in over her head and has made more enemies than friends.

In all honesty, I couldn't get through this book all the way. It really peeved me because I was more than halfway through it too. I picked up this book thinking it would be incredibly sexy and romantic. It was nothing like that. Basically it boiled down to a court battle set in the Middle East.

Soon there were too many characters to keep track of. I never knew who knew what, who was planning what and how some of the characters were interrelated. I got the connection of Hurrem to Gulbehar, but to me Julia was a complete mystery. Her existence did not further the plot at all and this irked me as Julia was one of the few characters I felt had any depth or warmth to her.

"The Sultan's Harem" wasn't awful, it was full of intrigue, color, and historical references that made the general story seem decently real. On the flip side, the novel lacked true excitement, understandable plots, and relatable characters. The reading was slow going and frustrating. Towards the end my patience waned and finally left me completely. I can see why some would like or even love this book...I just wasn't one of them.

Sultan's Harem / 1-4000-8312-5

The Sultan's Harem is a spectacular tale of hatred and revenge, as Falconer weaves the tale of a single woman - a slave of the most powerful man in the world - who tears down a powerful empire by careful manipulation of the man who loves her. This one woman, Hurrem, manages to take down an entire empire, all while only ever being seen by a handful of men - the sultan and his personal eunuchs.

While all this may seem completely cold-blooding, out heroine staunchly disagrees with the idea that she is a slave now, so why not make the best of it and be a good harem girl? She despises her sultan, the man who tore her from her home as just another bauble to add to his endless harem, the man whom she must keep amused lest she be tossed aside for another faceless girl waiting, claws ready, in the harem to overthrow her. Carefully, coldly, she designs to bear the sultan a child (not necessarily HIS child, if the situation requires), remove his previous favorite, entice him to fall in love, and then maneuver her freedom and unprecedented marriage to the emperor. No longer slave, but wife, she is still a slave in all but name, and she uses her mental hold on her husband to send him spiraling into madness while the kingdom collapses slowly around him.

Falconer carefully treads the personal and the political here, as with all his novels, and we see sympathetic glimpses into both the main players (sultan and sultana) and into the lives of the hapless girls living silently in his lavish harem. Each girl has her own history, her own loss, and her own sadness, and - faced with the realities of the harem, and of the monogamous sultan - finds her own pastimes and petty jealousies. Are these women better off than the ones on the outside? They have little freedom, but they are safe and pampered. Since the sultan is not particularly voracious in his appetites, they are not even really 'sex' slaves. Yet the silence and loneliness gnaws at their souls and the passage of time weighs heavily on all involved. Is Hurrem, our dark heroine, really so unusual in her hate, cruelty, and madness? Perhaps all the other women in the harem feel as she does, but does not have the fortune to act out.

Gripping and suspenseful, the Sultan's Harem is a compelling read - I could not put it down. I agree with another reviewer in that the story would make a wonderful movie, should anyone ever acquire the rights. Like other Falconer novels, the writing is frank and does not shy away from the 'facts' of life, but the writing is not overly lurid or vulgar, and he does not give into the temptation to throw in gratuitous sex scenes to try to increase readership.

I've read a lot of novels about Harems now, and they're all pretty different. Some focus on the sex element some on the capture of the women, some on the feminist element. And then there are those which focus on power and revenge. This is one such book.

"The Sultan's Harem" is a novel of Süleyman the magnificent (or the lawmaker), who is seen as the last of the great warrior sultans of the Ottoman Empire, and the power play that went on in his life between him, his five sons and the three women he honored with attention out of his Harem of 300.

In the beginning Süleyman is a man not happy with his position. Haunted by the bloody way his father took the throne, he is determined to leave no such situation for his own heirs, and thus has never slept with more than woman a blond named Gülbehar, who is the mother of his only child, a son. But the lack of heirs bothers his mother, who schemes to place another in his bed. Though she has no idea what kind of woman she is inflicting upon her son.

Hürrem is a red head Russian girl from the steeps but she is no country hay seed. Filled with hatred about her enforced imprisonment (luxurious as it may be) she is determined to become as powerful as she can. After gaining her place in the Sultans bed, she sets about using any means possible (blackmail, murder, poison...) to maintain her power. When her position is threatened by a young black haired Venetian girl named Julia (captured by Pirates) she takes a particular viscous revenge which endangers Julia's life, and if not for an old friend, would have ended it.

This is a novel full of power plays, danger, and brutal punishment. No one is what they seem and everyone's motives are questionable. Revenge is the watchword and everyone but the Sultan seems to know it. And in spite of the male dominated society of the Empire it is the women in the novel who are the only ones who seem to know what is going on.

Though he admits to using a great deal of speculation about Süleyman's life and his women, this is a very well done historical novel with an immense amount of detail. Weather or not is anything close to the truth it is an entertaining and educational novel.

This is a pretty well written novel but it somehow comes off as a bunch of short stories-there's just something about the way it switches from character to character that makes it seem fractured and that keeps you from ever becoming fully absorbed. None of the characters are particularly likeable and most are impossible to sympathize with but it is their ruthlessness (or lack of sense when being lied too) that keeps them interesting. Apart from that the only issue in the novel is that it is brutally frank is describing all sorts of disturbing scenes, from the violent to the sexual to the violently sexual. If that doesn't bother you then forge ahead, if it does, don't read this book.

All in all I still think the best harem novel out there is The Fourth Queen: A Novel but this one isn't bad. And there's definitely something interesting about the authors writing-if his other books don't contain the fracturing issue I'd be very interesting in reading them.

Three stars.

It was an interesting and fascinating read, but I would not take the historical aspect of it very seriously, I doubt women had that much freedom in the Harem. I felt the author was over glorifying the Ottoman Empire, and the part about Venetian life for a woman was rather inaccurate. He made Julia sound as if she was coming out of Calvinist Europe rather than Catholic Southern Europe. Other than that it kept me entertained so I wouldn't totally disregard this book. Its still a good read.
I agree with other's comments that the Julia/Abbas characters were unneeded. Julia irritated me because she was such a weak and boring character, Julia's part cutting in every other chapter was just an irritating interruption on Hurrem's part. I felt that Julia's character was just a way to stick a lesbian sex scene in, which, at times took completely away from the point of the whole book.
Still a recommended and exciting read.

This is a well written and historically acurate account of the events surrounding Suleiman and Roxelana. Anyone interested in the Ottoman empire will enjoy this book. However, the writer seems meticulously concerned with giving an account of the Ottoman world, but fails to give the characters real depth. This is why after reading a fourth of the book I could'nt really feel empathy or anything else for the people involved. They are too stereotypical. Roxelana is the sceming and truly merciless slave who's designs on Sulieman the Sultan are purely selfserving, but it seems to me no one is devoid of some human qualities surely? Sulieman is typically swept away by her to the point of utter stupidity. This is the last great sultan of the Ottoman empire, a man in a man's world who is intent on conquering Hungary and Greece in order to add them to his empire, and he gets swept of his feet by a conniving, murderous woman and turned into a weak man who lets others take control. The writer surrouns us with a world that's cruel and harsh but leaves out the emotional motivations of all the people involved. In the end one could'nt care less for them as they do not seem real.