| Details | | Publication Date: | 1996-04-01 |
| Size | | Length: | 364 pages | | Height: | 9.0 in | | Width: | 5.8 in | | Thickness: | 1.5 in | | Weight: | 18.4 oz |
Publisher's Note
Sofia, the daughter of a Venetian nobleman, is only a young woman in 1562, when she is kidnapped by corsairs and sold into captivity in the great Ottoman Empire. As manipulative as she is ambitious, Sofia vows that her future will hold more than sexual slavery in the great harem of the Sultan. Esmikhan is the Sultan's tender-hearted daughter, raised in the harem and content with her role as a privileged but powerless princess. Giorgio Veniero is the Italian sailor who is kidnapped with Sofia and who comes to live in the harem with Esmikhan and to love her - but at a price higher than a man can be expected to pay.
Industry Reviews
When Giorgio Veniero first sees Sofia Baffo in the Venetian convent garden, he is struck by the power of her beauty and the sheer force of her personality. In spite of her youth, the governor of Corfu's daughter is determined to make an advantageous match. Failing to achieve this aim in Venice, she is sent home under Veniero's supervision. During the trip, their ship is captured by Turkish pirates, and they are both sold into slavery. Undaunted, Sofia begins her climb to power in the Sultan's harem. Chamberlain (Tamar, Forge, 1994) has written a fascinating tale that would have been a good deal better had it been longer and had the author lavished the same detail on her characters that she did on the setting. For large historical fiction collections. Cynthia Johnson, Cary Memorial Lib., Lexington, Mass.
Breitman
Chamberlin's latest novel (after Tamar) blends absorbing historical detail with a lively, romantic plot about two Italian teenagers sold into slavery in the Ottoman Empire. In 1562, Giorgio Veniero, a 15-year-old orphaned sailor who narrates two thirds of the novel (the middle section is written in the third-person), sneaks inside a Venice convent to deliver a message from the Doge of Venice to Sofia Baffo, the feisty 14-year-old daughter of the governor of remote Corfu: she must go to Corfu and wed the man chosen by her father or the Doge will "turn you over his knee and thrash you as he would his own daughter." Infatuated with this beautiful yet calculating girl, Giorgio thwarts Sofia's elopement with a young nobleman and soon sails for Corfu with Sofia as a passenger. The ship is eventually overtaken by a band of Turks, and Giorgio willingly accompanies Sofia to Constantinople, where they are sold as slaves. Now a member of the Sultan's harem, Sofia learns that she has been chosen to divert the Sultan's heir from his opium habit. Giorgio and Sofia reunite in a rousing, bittersweet climax, but it's the fascinating descriptions of Islamic culture, including Giorgio's painful transformation into a slave, that make this story compelling. (Apr.)
Lopate
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