No, Allison. I meant that when I was persuaded not to feel guilty for reading books that I wasn't scanning for bookshare, and I was waiting to start the Skye O'Malley series, I read The Kadin. Also, if you read Until You, you'll remember that Rosamund Bolton was in love with Patrick Glenkick and there were references to his kidnapped daughter. I wanted to know what that was about, so I read The Kadin. The historical parts have to to with Sulamein the Great and his father and that period of time in the Ottoman Empire, as well, of course, as the customs there. Having read, also, The Speckled Monster, about the difficult but successful efforts of Lady Mary Montague in England and Dr. Samuel Boylston in Boston to innoculate against smallpox (a very readable book -- not scholarly and dry -- so well written I even read the Notes afterward for more information) I was surprised that Small uses a smallpox epidemic as a device (I won't spoil things by saying how), since what was called variolation (slightly different from vaccination but as effective) apparently was used in the Ottoman Empire even in the time she set her story -- but that would have spoiled her plot. BTW, the sex scenes in the Kadin are far less explicit than in her later books. Cindy Cindy __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com