Review: The Sultan's Harem by Colin Falconer

I will admit, my expectations were low going into The Sultan's Harem. I was afraid it would heavy on the romance and the sex, at the cost of the story itself. As I've discussed before, I don't mind romance and sex in a book, but I get bored when they are the focus. But I was really interested in Hurrem after seeing her mentioned in Pirate Women, so I bit the bullet and gave it a try.

While it didn't blow my socks off, and I am not sure I'd re-read it, I am not sorry I read it, and it was better than I was expecting. While there was certainly sex, it was relatively minimal for taking place in a Harem and it generally served a purpose in the story. And the romance was surprisingly minimal as well, given that this was the story of a Sultan who rejected tradition and turned his world upside down to marry a woman.

La Sultana Rossa,
or Portrait of a Woman,
circa 1550 by Titian

Hurrem was an interesting character. I have a biography of her set aside to read soon, and I am curious how much the biography meshes with the Hurrem portrayed in this book. Without giving too much away, I'll say she is not portrayed so much as a woman in love whose love conquered all, but more of a woman who schemed to carve what control she could out of a world where women had no rights. It delivered on my interest in political intrigue, I will say that.

The characters are fairly well developed and interesting, and the dynamics between them all keep the reader engaged. I am not sure anything in the plot was particularly surprising, but it kept me reading. It certainly paints a picture of what life must have been like for women of that era. It definitely whet my appetite for a biography of Hurrem. It also piqued my interest in Suleiman himself, even though I went into this book far more interested in Hurrem.

Overall, I felt it was a solid 3 star read. Worth reading if you are interested in the time period or one of the historical figures featured in the book, but if that doesn't interest you, you can probably skip it.