The Book Mistresses​​

  In her latest novel, one of Turkey's preeminent writers spins an epic tale set at the height of the Ottoman empire and teemingwith secrets, intique, and romance.

  A twelve-year-old Indian boy named Jahan arrives in sixteenth-century Istanbul bearing a magnificent gift for the sultan; a white elephant named Chota, destined for the palace menagerie. Ambitious and curious, Jahan becomes Chota's trainer, preparing the elephant for extrodinary tasks, from performing for the crowds to fighting in the army. Jahan life changes the day he encounters the sultan's beguiling, mischievous daughter, Princess Mihrimah.

  A palace education leads Jahan to Mimar Sinan, the empires chief architect, who eventually takes Jahan under his arm as one of his four apprentices. Together they construct (with Chota's help and the assistance of Christian, Muslim, and Jewish laborers) some of the most splendid buildings in history. Yet even as they attempt to surpass the monuments of Christianity in building Sinan's triuphant masterpieces-the incredible Suleimaniye and Selimiye mosques-dangerous undercurrents begin to emerge, there is jealousy amoung the apprentices, who are not all they seem, and rivals and enemies on all sides.

  A dramatic, memorable story of artistic freedom, creativity, and the clash between silence and ignorance Shafak's novel brims with vibrant characters (including Gypsies, heretics, and Sufis, prostitutes, and other voices of the dispossessed), compelling adventure, and the lavish backdrop of the Ottoman court, where love and loyalty are no match forraw power. The Architect's Apprentice is magical, sweeping of one boy and his elephant caught up in a world of wonder and danger.