The Oracle of Stamboul

Toronto: HarperCollins, 2011 Book. As New. French Wraps. 1st Canadian Edition.. Ushered into the world by a mysterious pair of Tartar midwives late in the summer of 1877 in the town of Constanta on the Black Sea, Eleonora Cohen proves herself an extraordinarily gifted child a prodigy at a very young age. When she is eight years old, she stows away aboard a ship, following her carpet merchant father, Yakob, to the teeming and colorful imperial capital of Stamboul where a new life awaits her. In the narrow streets of this city at the crossroads of the world, intrigue and gossip are currency, and people are not always what they seem. But it is only when she charms the eccentric Sultan Abdulhamid II, beleaguered by friend and foe as his unwieldy realm crumbles that Eleonora will change the course of an empire. Publisher's publicity sheet laid in.