A review by fuzzyduckky
The Oracle of Stamboul by Michael David Lukas

2.0

The cover for this book is just beautiful, one of the reasons why I brought this book (I'm just a lover of beautiful covers).

I did enjoy this book, but I didn't love it. The reason for this is because I did not feel connected to the story at all and the way in which the story was told was just distant to me.

The characters were interesting, but again I didn't connect to any of them. I did find Eleonora unbelievable at times, possibly because she is a little girl who is very intelligent and ends up advising the ambassador of Turkey. Don't get me wrong, I did love how smart she was, it was just a bit over the top for me.

I really enjoyed the magical element of things, for example the flock of birds which are present at Eleonora's birth and follow her around throughout the story. The descriptions of Turkey were beautiful and you could almost feel yourself there looking at the buildings and smelling the spices. These descriptions did go on for awhile, which at times made me skim read certain parts. Maybe this was the reason why the story felt a bit distant to me.

I was very disappointed with the ending of the story which was a bit flat. I didn't get the conclusion I was hoping for and loose ends were not tied up. Overall, it was a beautiful story and worth the read.