Rating: 
Summary: Winds down to a flat conclusion
Review: Not really a romance, not much of an historical novel, because there is not enough made clear about the history. We don't get any depth of characters or even any sensuality. By the time we get to the last part of the book we don't get any interaction with the characters at all, just broad sweeping narrative. Tulip the eunuch as the narrator is just not exciting enough. By the end of the book there is so little detail it is like it was in note form. Don't let the sexy looking cover fool you into thinking you are going to learn about her in any depth. A biography gone wrong, with no real narrative drive. She had hoped to find stuff to support hr research, didn't so passed it off as a novel.
Even the fact that she was a cousin of Josephine, Napoleon's first wife, is not very exciting (and a lot more could have been made out of it). She has no depth and is far too haughty and self-centred to be interesting.
Rating: 
Summary: Instead try...
Review: reading "Sultana" by Prince Michael (Michel) of Greece (1984). ("La Nuit du serail" in French.)SO much better! Lush and Byzantine with more beautifully crafted sentences and deliciously described scenes. I found Sultana much more evocotive of the era, the palace and Nakshidil/Aimee's mind, not to mention, the historical accurancy is much sharper in Sultana. The book actually inspired my own unforgettable pilgrimage to the Harem at Topkapi in Instanbul. Very hard to find a copy, but keep after it, or if you read French, you might have an easier time finding "La Nuit du Serail". I originally found a copy of the latter at the main branch of the Brooklyn Public Library.
Rating:
Summary: An Intriguing Setting But ...
Review: The book begins with a powerful scene: a Catholic priest summoned during the middle of the night to administer confession/last rites to the mother of the reigning sultan. Immediately, I was intrigued by this woman, how she came into such a situation. As the book wore on, however, I gained no real insight into her soul. I learned details about her past; I learned about the social and political boundaries of the harem, but I never cared about her or any of the main characters. The book never drew me into its world, which left "Seraglio" feeling too much like a simple romance novel.
Rating:
Summary: Could Have Been Better
Review: The premise of this fictional account of an historical event is so intriguing that it seemed impossible for it to be a disappointing read. And yet it was. Though Wallach more than adequately describes "what they wore" and "what they looked like" she isn't able to tell the story very convincingly. Curiously she chooses to tell Nakshidil (the woman whose story inspired this novel) story from the perspective of Nakshidil's chief eunuch/servant Tulip. Perhaps that is Wallach's mistake. Tulip's tone is stilted and unconvincing. Though he demonstrates untimely knowledge of modern psychotherapy by encouraging Nakshidil to purge her soul in order to exorcise her demons, it goes no further than that. We never have the feeling that we understand who Tulip is, what he feels, what he has endured and what Nakshidil has experienced. This would be fine if the author hadn't introduced the possibility that we might have some insight into what these two people endured.
Rating: 
Summary: The Extraordinary Life of a Harem Slave
Review: The year is 1788 and young Aimee du Buc is on her way to Martinique when her ship is captured by pirates. The pirates realize they have a prize with this beautiful and elegant girl and they present her as a gift to the Ottoman Sultan. For the rest of her life, Aimee will live as a prisoner in the Sultan's harem, or seraglio. But the book is the story of how she triumphs in that mysterious world and eventually, comes to rule it. The story is based on the life of a real young woman who was a cousin of the French Empress Josephine and the best part of this novel is Janet Wallach's recreation of the historical world in which novel takes place. The details about the life of the seraglio are fascinating and Wallach includes every detail you would want to know - from her descriptions of the vast wealth of the palace to the way in which the women of the seraglio were taught to make love to the sultan and how to bring him pleasure. One of the most fascinating parts of Seraglio is the information it contains about the Muslim religion. Many of the conflicts that took place in the Ottoman Empire foreshadow the East-West conflict going on today, so the reader will get some important historical perspective from reading this book.
Rating: 
Summary: This Book Rates Zero Stars
Review: This book was awful! I'm amazed how an intriguing story like this can be told so poorly. With every page I groan out loud. Skip this book and read Sultana by Prince Michael of Greece instead.
Rating:
Summary: Skip this book
Review: This is an awful book. The author makes huge leaps in the plot and the characters are uninteresting and shallow. You are told by the author that a particular character cares about someone or something, but their actions up until that point lead you to believe otherwise. Also, people simply do not speak the way characters in this book do. Using the eunuch Tulip as a narrator here was a bad idea. The author is constantly concocting ridiculous ways in which Tulip gets access into the private meetings of the Ottoman royalty.
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