Teaser Tuesday: The Aviary Gate by Katie Hickman

Teaser Tuesdays is hosted by MizB of Should be Reading. If you'd like to play along, please do the following:

Grab your current read.
Open to a random page.
Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page.
Be careful not to include spoilers.
Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers.



Here is my teaser from the ARC of The Aviary Gate by Katie Hickman, a tale of love, secrets and murder in the Ottoman Palace in sixteenth century Constantinople:

p. 52
"There were many occasions in the life of the palace women -- entertainments and dancing for the Sultan, alfresco picnics in the palace gardens and boating expeditions along the Bosphorous -- when the Valide showed herself. At those times, when the music played and the sound of women's voices and laughter carried on the rose-scented air, when they were taken to watch the dolphins sporting in the Sea of Marmara or when the moonlight sparkled on the waters of the Bosphorous and the little boats of the women, lit up like fireflies, followed the Sultan in his mother Safiye's barge, its poop all inlaid wih precious stones, shining with ivory and gold, at those times, Celia thought, it was possible to believe that the Valide was indeed the mother of them all."