The Harem

Humorous, though tinged with a sense of the tragic, at times risqué, and utterly contemporary, The Harem is a fast-paced novel about young Asian women and their quest for freedom.

An opulent, riveting, and suspenseful continuation of the thrilling historical novel The Midwife of Venice set in medieval Constantinople. AN OPULENT, CAPTIVATING, AND SUSPENSEFUL HISTORICAL NOVEL FROM THE AUTHOR OF THE THRILLING INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER THE MIDWIFE OF VENICE The Imperial Harem, Constantinople, 1578. Hannah and Isaac Levi, Venetians in exile, have overcome unfathomable obstacles to begin life anew in the Ottoman Empire. He works in the growing silk trade, and she, the best midwife in the capital, tends to the hundreds of women in Sultan Murat III’s lively and infamous harem. One night, Hannah is unexpectedly sum­moned to the extravagant palace and confronted with Leah, a Jewish peasant girl who was violently abducted. The sultan favors Leah as his next conquest and wants her to produce his heir, but if the spirited girl fails an important test, she faces a terrible fate. Taken by Leah’s tenacity, Hannah risks everything to help her. But as Hannah agonizes over her decision, an enchanting stranger arrives from afar to threaten her peaceful life with Isaac, and soon Leah too reveals a dark secret that could condemn them both. Filled with adventure and vivid detail and peopled with memorable charac­ters, The Harem Midwife showcases Roberta Rich’s boundless talent for cap­turing readers’ imaginations.

Not since Anna Diamant’s The Red Tent or Geraldine Brooks’s People of the Book has a novel transported readers so intimately into the complex lives of women centuries ago or so richly into a story of intrigue that transcends the boundaries of history. A “lavishly detailed” (Elle Canada) debut that masterfully captures sixteenth-century Venice against a dramatic and poetic tale of suspense. Hannah Levi is renowned throughout Venice for her gift at coaxing reluctant babies from their mothers using her secret “birthing spoons.” When a count implores her to attend his dying wife and save their unborn son, she is torn. A Papal edict forbids Jews from rendering medical treatment to Christians, but his payment is enough to ransom her husband Isaac, who has been captured at sea. Can she refuse her duty to a woman who is suffering? Hannah’s choice entangles her in a treacherous family rivalry that endangers the child and threatens her voyage to Malta, where Isaac, believing her dead in the plague, is preparing to buy his passage to a new life. Told with exceptional skill, The Midwife of Venice brings to life a time and a place cloaked in fascination and mystery and introduces a captivating new talent in historical fiction.

They are erotic artists, trained to indulge their lovers' wildest wishes and most forbidden fantasies. And that is only the beginning. Now, in these scorching hot novellas, four ripe and ready concubines will discover the joys of getting what they give. . . The Secret Door, Noelle Mack Left to wander the glittering Topkapi palace by night, Yasmina falls into a magical dream, discovering a secret garden where a strong, dark-haired man wraps her in a sensual embrace, imploring her to unveil her body--and reveal her deepest desires. . . The Pleasure Garden, Emma Leigh Julia Martin awakens to find herself in the Forbidden City, where she will be trained in the ways of Tao lovemaking by a handsome, mysterious Englishman. As inhibitions and innocence fall away, a temptress is born--and master and student pursue an education in mutual pleasure. . . East Meets West, Celia May Hart Chandari's destiny is with the Maharajah, not with the lieutenant escorting her. But as temptation grows into a hunger neither can resist, two star-crossed lovers are willing to risk everything for stolen moments of sheer ecstasy. . . A Lady's Pleasure, Melissa MacNeal Ophelia Leeds is shocked to learn that her late lumber-baron husband also captained a floating pleasure palace with a bevy of beauties to entertain his wealthy friends. Now the comely widow has a plan of her own--to become mistress of the love boat and bring aboard a brawny harem of lumberjacks who are ready, willing, and more than able to please Ophelia--again and again. . .

A jaw-dropping story of how a girl from the suburbs ends up in a prince's harem, and emerges from the secret Xanadu both richer and wiser At eighteen, Jillian Lauren was an NYU theater school dropout with a tip about an upcoming audition. The "casting director" told her that a rich businessman in Singapore would pay pretty American girls $20,000 if they stayed for two weeks to spice up his parties. Soon, Jillian was on a plane to Borneo, where she would spend the next eighteen months in the harem of Prince Jefri Bolkiah, youngest brother of the Sultan of Brunei, leaving behind her gritty East Village apartment for a palace with rugs laced with gold and trading her band of artist friends for a coterie of backstabbing beauties. More than just a sexy read set in an exotic land, Some Girls is also the story of how a rebellious teen found herself-and the courage to meet her birth mother and eventually adopt a baby boy.

Rich in visual imagery, Harem vividly depicts the exotic bazaars and dangerous alleys of the city and palace chambers brimming with conspiracy and betrayal—as well as love and redemption. A seductive and intriguing journey from the humble Persian Jewish quarter to the fascinating world of shahs, soothsayers, eunuchs, and sultanas, Harem follows three generations of strong-willed and cunning women: Rebekah—a poor girl married to the abusive blacksmith, Jacob the fatherless—who emerges from her disastrous match with a mysterious brand between her breasts; Gold Dust, Rebekah's treasured daughter, who enters the opulent and perilous world of the harem and captivates the shah with her singing bones; and Gold Dust's daughter, the revered and feared albino princess Raven, who will one day rule the empire.

This survey features photographs and floor plans of Topkapi Palace as well as profiles of the harem's women, their eunuch guards, and court manners, dress, and politics. 42 black-and-white illustrations.

A history of elite women who were concubines and wives of powerful slave-soldiers, known as Mamluks, who dominated Egypt both politically and militarily in the eighteenth century.