THE SULTAN'S HAREM by Colin Falconer, 2006.
This had been on my list quite a while, and I'm glad I got around to it at last.

Spanning the years from 1522 to 1561, the age of Suleyman the Magnificent, and set mainly in the ancient city of Constantinople (Stamboul), Falconer quickly introduces most of his large cast during the early chapters. The Sultan is all-powerful in this world of the Ottomans, called Lord of the Lords of this World, Possessor of Men's Necks, Allah's Deputy, etc. He holds the power of life and death over all his subjects, no questions asked. At the heart of the sultan's palace, though, is the Harem, a vast domain of women of various types and nationalities, beautiful and pampered and sheltered from the world and who always await the sultan's pleasure. Guarded by eunuchs, the Harem may not be entered by any man but the sultan himself. The women, some of whom are his wives, some concubines, some slaves, all live together under this roof and all compete for the sultan's notice. Falconer's story concerns three of Suleyman's women: Gulbehar, the mother of his heir; Julia Gonzaga, the daughter of an Italian lord who is kidnapped while on a journey from Venice to Cyprus to meet her husband; and Hurrem, a young Tartar from the Russian steppes who is sold into slavery and winds up in the Harem. These three characters form the main threads of the story as their lives intertwine along with Suleyman's and several other characters: Ibrahim, Suleyman's most trusted friend and adviser and right hand man who is cruelly betrayed in one of Hurrem's plots; Abbas, the eunuch who loves Julia and is destroyed by that love but first is able to redeem himself by saving her; Ludovici, who loves Julia but can never truly possess her heart, and Mustapha, Suleyman's eldest and dearest son and heir, who is forced to pay the ultimate penalty through no fault of his own. The main force of the novel is Hurrem, the manipulative and vicious Russian beauty who endlessly plots and schemes her way into Suleyman's bed at all costs, and once there, continuously hatches intrigues to remove anyone standing in the way of what she most desires: REVENGE. Falconer's narrative races along filled with fascinating historical details, lush descriptions, horrendous violence and cruelty, family strife, love and hate, forbidden desire and obsession, huge battle scenes, mistaken identity, missed opportunities, and eventual triumph. I found this a hugely entertaining and involving novel, and I enjoyed learning about the Ottomans and this time in their history. I thought Hurrem an especially interesting heroine of sorts: even though over the course of the novel the reader may come to despise her (as I did) for her wicked nastiness, Falconer's excellent characterization of her enables you to understand her motivations and almost admire her perseverance, utter determination, and courage in such a situation as she found herself. On the other hand, Suleyman, whom Falconer shows as a very dominating, powerful potentate, changes over time into a somewhat pitiable figure, one that the reader has sympathy for, but at the same time realizes that so much of his misery was caused by his own stubborn refusal to recognize people for what they truly are. A very worthwhile read, I would recommend it to anyone with an interest in stories of palace intrigue or an interest in historicals set during Ottoman Empire.