1579: Hannah Levi, a Venetian exile, has set up a new life for herself as the best midwife in all of Constantinople, tending to the thousand women of the Sultan's lively and infamous harem. One night, when Hannah is unexpectedly summoned to the palace, she's confronted with Leah, a poor Jewish peasant girl who has been abducted and sold into the harem. The Sultan wants her to produce his heir, but the girl just wants to return to her home and the...

Three people will struggle to determine the fate of an empire - the young Turkish sultan, desperate to prove his greatness; a stubborn Byzantine princess, sworn to protect her city; and a mercenary captain with a score to settle. But of them, it is the hardened soldier Giovanni Longo who will face the worst choice.

1172. The Kingdom of Jerusalem, also known as 'Outremer' - the land beyond the sea. Outremer was a young realm, one baptized in blood when the men of the First Crusade captured Jerusalem from the Saracens in 1099. Those crusaders who stayed had to adapt to an utterly new world, a land of blazing heat and exotic customs and enemies who were also neighbours. Balian d'Ibelin had long enjoyed a relationship of mutual respect with Saladin. But Saladin...