When twelve-year-old Dalya is dragged to Istanbul to help sell her family's ancestral home, the visit begins unpromisingly. Most of the aged mansion is off-limits because it's falling apart, her father is ignoring her, and her great aunt keeps prattling on about a family curse. Despite warnings against it, Dalya tiptoes upstairs, where she finds an old bottle of magic ink hidden under a floorboard. She asks the bottle's jinn (aka genie) to grant her a simple wish...to send her home. Except the jinn interprets "go home" to mean "send me back in time and turn me into a cat." Then Dalya must set off on a wild adventure through Istanbul's animal underworld to find the jinn with the power to set things right.
"In Istanbul with her father, twelve-year-old Dalya's wish turns her into a cat and sends her to 1907, where she meets an ancestor and uncovers a family secret, aided by animal friends"--Provided by publisher.
Text and illustrations describe the characteristics of churches, palaces, basilicas, hospitals, markets, and fortifications built in the city of Byzantium, now known as Istanbul, during the height of its power.
To build the country she wants, Lada, the brutal ruler of Wallachia, must destroy everything that came before, including her relationships with brother Radu and former love Mehmed, Sultan of the Ottoman Empire.
To build the country she wants, Lada, the brutal ruler of Wallachia, must destroy everything that came before, including her relationships with brother Radu and former love Mehmed, Sultan of the Ottoman Empire.
Lada Dracul seeks her younger brother Radu's help in securing the Wallachian throne, but their father, Sultan Mehmed, has sent him to sabotage Constantinople.
The murder of an English governess for the royal harem causes controversy at the palace and the British embassy as the search for the killer consumes the Ottoman Empire.
