The Sheen on the Silk

Written by Anne Perry

Narrated by Jill Tanner

Arriving in Constantinople in 1273, Anna Zarides vows to prove the innocence of her twin brother, Justinian, who has been exiled to the desert for conspiring to kill a nobleman. Disguising herself as a eunuch named Anastasius, Anna moves freely about in society, maneuvering close to the key players involved in her brother’s fate, including Zoe Chrysaphes, a devious noblewoman with her own hidden agenda, and Giuliano Dandolo, a ship’s captain conflicted by his growing feelings for Anastasius. As leaders in Rome and Venice plot to invade Constantinople in another Crusade to capture the Holy Land, Anna’s discoveries draw her inextricably closer to the dangers of the emperor’s treacherous court—where it seems that no one is exactly who he or she appears to be.

"[A] grandly scaled epic … with a canny eye for drama, [Perry] makes this complex historical background both vivid and clear."—Kirkus Reviews

• Language: English
• Publisher: Recorded Books, Inc.
• Release date: Oct 22, 2024
• ISBN: 9798892744195

Anne Perry

Anne Perry (1938–2023) was a bestselling author of historical detective fiction, most notably the Thomas and Charlotte Pitt series and the William Monk series, both set in Victorian England. Her first book, The Cater Street Hangman (1979), launched both the Pitt series and her career as a premier writer of Victorian mysteries. Other novels in the series include Resurrection Row, Death in the Devil’s Acre, and Silence in Hanover Close, as well as more than twenty others. The William Monk series of novels, featuring a Victorian police officer turned private investigator, includes Funeral in Blue, The Twisted Root, and The Silent Cry. In addition to these series, Perry also authored the World War I novels No Graves as Yet, Shoulder the Sky, Angels in the Gloom, and others, as well as several collections of short stories. Perry’s novels have appeared on bestseller lists around the world and have sold more than twenty-five million books in print worldwide.  

[herbcat_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

It's always nice to see a good author show versatility, and Anne Perry has done that with this book. It has even more depth and substance than her popular detective series and greater results to be gained if the puzzles are worked out. While all the principles are trying to work out an idea of what is really happening, what has happened, and what is going to happen, kismet comes along and gives it all a new twist. In trying to save Constantinople from another sacking by the "Christian crusaders" on their way to Jerusalem, the Byzantines consider signing a truce and agreement with the Vatican and the Roman Catholic Pope, a move which would likely lead to the eastern church losing much of its self determination to the less openminded Roman Catholics. Rome uses many tactics to gain the upper hand, but many of the Byzantine residents are just as clever and resourceful in combating the supposed threat. This is a delicious look at the politics of the area in 1276, including lots of interesting detail and much religious philosophy of the era and much historical fact. The western world probably owes a great deal to the brave citizens of Constantinople, in culture, heritage, and freedom as well as the resulting history.

[limelite_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Audio review.

Plucky Anna Zarides, trained in herbal medicine, arrives in Constantinople in 1272 in an attempt to discover who killed Bessarion Comnenos, the man her twin brother, Justinian, is falsely exiled for having murdered. In order to accomplish her task and to move freely about the city, she disguises herself as a physician eunuch and goes by the name of Anastasius Zarides.

Ever so slowly, she attempts to win the confidence of Bishop Constantine, her brother’s patron. At the same time she is winning the heart of Venetian Captain Giuliano Dandolo.

In an era when Byzantium seems besieged on all sides by scheming Venetians, ideological emissaries of the revolving door Roman Popes, and even barbarian hordes, Anna discovers her true powers.

Full of sub-plots, conspiracies, and treachery, this is just the kind of book that is delightful when read aloud to one, but might be less exciting to read as its religiosity is somewhat tiresome and its historicity is more convincing than its fiction.

[bookczuk · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I am very familiar with Anne Perry from her two mystery series set in London and surrounds, back in the early part of the last century. Her ability to evoke a sense of place is laudable, and I thought that this book might be a good companion for a car trip I was taking, especially since this book is set in a time and place that fascinate me: Constantinople in the 1270's. I was in Istanbul 700 years after this story takes place, and the remnants of history, culture, religions, and war are still firmly planted in my memories.

The story follows Anna Lascaris who, disguised as Anastasius, a eunuch and physician comes to Constantinople in search of information that can help rescue her twin brother Justinian from shadow of crime (he's been accused of colluding in murder) and the banishment that resulted. Over the next decade, Anna establishes herself as a physician of skill, and works her way into the confidences and households of some of the most important homes in the city, including the emperor himself, and high figures in the Eastern Orthodox church. All the while, the division of faith between the church in Byzantium and the Roman Catholic Church in Rome. War, in the form of another crusade, hovers in the background. Anna struggles with her own feelings as a woman, as a physician, as a believer in the eastern church. And struggle it is, because there is a lot of secrecy and duplicity surrounding her. She is not the only one hiding something.

To be honest, the beauty of the story for me was in the city, the passions and powers that swept through it. Less interesting were the people (and there were a lot of characters in this tale). Anna was well-drawn, if not rather dull for a woman disguised as a eunuch, but some of the others, including a couple of main characters, were more of a caricature, particularly the mother/daughter duo of Zoe and Helena. I also found what little information that slipped through about herbal remedies interesting. Because of that and the setting captured me, I give this a 3 star.

[cyderry · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Anne Perry, renown for her Victorian mysteries, has taken a backwards turn in time and place and landed in Constantinople in the late 13th century. The book centers around Anastasius Zarides (Anna), a Venetian woman who disguises herself as a eunuch, and arrives in Constantinople ready to practice medicine and try to find the truth about a murder that has been blamed on her twin brother. At the same time as Anna is searching for the truth, the Eastern Orthodox (Byzantine) and Western Roman Churches are battling for supremacy.

This was a great plot idea and the background brought multiple possibilities to the table but this book just didn't work for me. With Anna as a eunuch, there really wasn't much of a way for her to interact with the other characters except in her capacity as a doctor and that was very flat and very boring very quickly. There were so many characters that were conspiring against this person and that person it was hard to keep things straight.

The descriptions of the location and surrounding/competing areas was just what was expected from Anne Perry, but the book was a disappointment. I feel that the many subplots detracted from the book. I could have had a much tighter structure which would have made the book easier to read and much more enjoyable, IMO.

[sleahey_3 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The perfect book for me to read while I was in Istanbul and exploring the mosques and churches, this novel gave me a historical framework for all the sights I was seeing. Plus, the suspense of solving the murders, the division between the Roman church and Greek Orthodoxy, and the budding romance of the main character, all made this rather long work a page-turner.

[willowwaw · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is the first book of Anne Perry's that I have read and I have to say I enjoyed it and will be reading others of hers in the future. I found the novel to be very interesting with its taste of Byzantium culture and historical merit while involving mystery and romance. Some parts of the novel did drag on, but with the short chapters were passed through quickly. I would recommend this novel to anyone who loves historical fiction with a taste of mystery.

[travis1259 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I've always been a big fan of Anne Perry. And, over the years have enjoyed her Victorian mysteries. They never disappoint me. But, I did think it was a stretch and a gamble for her to tackle the 13th century, and most importantly Constantinople. But, she did piull it off. And portrayed the mystique and natural beauty of that magnificant city. An artful mix of history and fiction, this long novel moves along at a respectable pace. While the original premise, a search by Anna to find out the truth behind her brother's exile, stretches out over the length of the novel, there are fascinating subplots and great charecterizations that do move things along. Added to this is the fascinating history of the region, the balancing act between The Roman Catholic faction and the Orthodox faith, and the threat of the Crusades. All in all this was a novel I am glad I read. It certainly made me more eager than ever to learn more about the Byzantine Empire. And, to investigate further Venice of that period.

[pennymck_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A wonderful story of Constantinople in the 13th century and of men and women trying to solve complex political problems with integrity.

[romonko · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is a long book and it did take me awhile to get into it, but once my interest was piqued, then I really enjoyed it. It is quite a bit different than Perry's earlier works and the time frame and location are certainly different. The book is set in Byzantium (which later on in history became the city of Constantinople) in the 13 century. The premise behind the book is the differences in points of view and in religious dogma between the Roman Catholic Church and the Greek Orthodox Church. It is also set around the time of the Crusades, so that too is also thrown into the mix. People are fighting for their homeland and their religion and it is a very unsettling and unstable time. I love the way Anne Perry sets the stage in her books, and even though this one was slower than her other works, the stage was set magnificently. I found that I really got into the time and place and really cared about what happened to Anna and her friends. Anna is a wonderful heroine - a strong female who is also a doctor and one who cares deeply for the human race. And no one can weave a plot like Anne Perry! It is her own particular secret and that is what keeps me turning the pages in every book she writes. I think that this book puts Anne Perry near the top of the historical novel writers list because she has diverged so much from her regular series, and still has managed to write a book that fascinates and enthralls.

[kasthu_1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

In The Sheen in the Silk, Anne Perry enters different territory than with her Victorian-era mysteries. Set in Constantinople in the 1270s and ‘80s, it features the adventures of Anna Zarides, a young woman who goes to the city to investigate a murder supposedly committed by her brother. Anna dresses as a eunuch and poses as a physician, so that she may better conduct her inquiries. All of this is set against a larger struggle between the Eastern Orthodox church and western Christianity.

Oh, dear. I really wanted to like this book. A beautiful setting, an intriguing plot—I thought, how could you go wrong with that? Well, a lot of things. It’s not that Anne Perry is a bad writer; it’s just that this particular novel wasn’t interesting or intriguing enough to make me want to read on. From the get-go, the premise of the book isn’t entirely clear; for the first two hundred pages or so, I had a hard time sorting out the characters and what had happened to whom. There also wasn’t enough back story to any of the characters from the start, so I was confused for a long time before things began to make some sense.

Another one of the book’s problem is that it’s a mix of genres, both mystery and epic historical fiction, if you want to call it that. This confused and confusing mix of genres ultimately works against the novel; because it frequently becomes a convoluted mess.

Another thing I didn’t like about this book were the characters, especially the main one; it seems as though the author pulled out all the clichés to describe here. How many times before have we seen the enlightened female physician in historical fiction? Also, I thought that Anna was extremely difficult to like as a character, simply because we never got to see her as anything other than cold and clinical. In fact, Anna spends so much time with her patients and not enough time investigating the murder that I began to get bored after a while. Her search is conducted over a number of years, too, which lessened the sense of urgency that make you as the reader want to read on. Anne Perry’s descriptions of 13th century Constantinople are gorgeous, and her writing style is very straightforward; but I simply did not connect to any of the characters or the implausible plot for me to continue reading after page 200. It’s a shame, because, having read some of her Thomas Pitt novels, I was expecting something much better.

[chatterbox_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I wanted to love this book -- I'm a fan of Anne Perry's Victorian-era mysteries featuring Pitt and Monk, and even enjoyed her segue into the World War I era with a quartet of novels which I felt were generally less successful. And I'm a big fan of mainstream historical fiction, including the epics of authors like Sharon Kay Penman, whose company Perry is clearly trying to join with this, her first 'mainstream' historical novel.

But although I plodded my way diligently through all 500-plus pages, doing so sometimes started feeling like a chore; this was a book that, despite a fascinating setting -- the Byzantine empire in the late 13th century, threatened by a repeat of the devastating attack by Roman Catholic crusaders that had occurred in 1204 -- and a few vivid characters, was too easy to put down and forget about, even midway through.

The plot -- loosely, at least -- revolves around Anna, who disguises herself as a eunuch and travels to the empire's capital in order to try to unravel the mystery surrounding her brother's banishment to a distant monastery for having murdered a young Byzantine nobleman. But while most of Perry's conventional mysteries are resolved within the few weeks required for one of her detectives to ferret out the truth, this novel drags on for nearly a decade. Anna, disguised as Anastasius the eunuch, establishes herself as a physician to the nobility and even treats the emperor. His/her path crosses with members of the nobility, including some who are extraordinarily devout, extraordinarily manipulative and even extraordinarily murderous. The main plot becomes caught up in far too many sub-plots, many of which aren't well-developed or convincing. That in turn distracts the reader from the main plot, which in turn is related to Byzantine issues of state: will Byzantium accept changes to its Greek Orthodox faith in order to save itself from invasion from another bunch of crusaders? What will those who oppose these compromises -- who include some of the novels heroes and its villains -- resort to in order to preserve their way of life? The city is at war with itself, diplomats on one side -- including the city's emperor, Michael -- and religious purists like bishop Constantine on the other.

Unfortunately, instead of allowing the action to drive the plot, Perry far too often allows her narrative to fall into ruminations about theological issues, the nature of good and evil, heaven and hell, the role of religion in life, etcetera. Some of these discussions last for pages, and by the end had become so repetitious that I literally rolled my eyes, closed the book and thumped it down on a table on reading the following comment by one key character to another: "You missed the grace and the passion, the courage beyond anything we can imagine, the hope even in absolute darkness, the gentleness, the laughter and the love that has no shadow. The journey is longer and steeper than any of us can understand, but then heaven is higher, so it has to be steep, and far."

There is far too much florid, introspective language of that kind (always a feature of Perry's books) in this novel. It works when set in a shorter book, and when a character is in the midst of an epiphany, but is sententious, awkward and cumbersome when it happens every 20 pages or so. Anna notes of one character, "He described the funny and the absurd with pleasure and, she noticed, without cruelty. The more she listened to him, the more irrevocably she felt bound to the good in him." This could have been conveyed far more vividly in half as many words...

Perry has done a superb job of researching and recreating 13th century Byzantium, but I felt let down by the novel itself, the vehicle she used to try and convince her readers that it was a fascinating and dynamic place, a society so compelling that it becomes seductive to even those that start out as its enemies. It just doesn't work, and that's why I can't give this more than three stars or recommend it very heartily even to dedicated historical fiction readers. Byzantium isn't well-trodden territory in historical fiction, and this was Perry's chance to make it as fascinating and immediate to readers as Sharon Penman has done with medieval Wales and Colleen McCullough with ancient Rome. She doesn't pull it off, and it's because the novel meanders too much, pulled down by its multiple subplots, theological meandering and repetitive musing.

This will appeal to Perry's hardcore fans; those who sometimes struggle with her tendency to have her characters talk incessantly about their feelings and existential thoughts will find this book a far tougher read than her detective novels, because it's moving at a much slower pace. Personally, after finishing this, I really felt the need to go off and read something tightly and vividly written.

[dianaleez · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Historical mystery novelist Anne Perry's newest offering is a welcome change of pace. `The Sheen on the Silk,' set in thirteenth century Constantinople, is the story of Anna, who disguises herself as the eunuch Anastasius, to clear her twin brother of a murder charge.

Unfortunately, Perry's depiction of the Ottoman Empire is fairly lackluster. For me, at least, Constantinople never came to life. And this was such a fascinating time in the Byzantine Empire's history. Emperor Michael is faced with the threat of yet another Roman Catholic/crusader invasion. How is he to protect both his people and their Greek Orthodox faith?

And while physician/detective Anastasius is a sympathetic character, her role is rather passive. She reacts to much that occurs in the novel but is usually not herself a driving force. She is sometimes lost to the reader as the focus of the novel shifts among Constantinople, Venice, Rome, and Sicily.

On the other hand, Perry is to be applauded for her integration of historical research into her plot line. I never felt that I was being `lectured' or that material was added simply because research had been paid for.

That said, it's a complex plot that, in my opinion, meanders on too long. And one that never catches that spark that compels the reader to go on to the next chapter.

Those who enjoy historical fiction may well enjoy Perry's change of pace; it is set in a fascinating time and place when seminal events were occurring. But `The Sheen on the Silk' lacks both the intensity and life required to be a first rate historical novel. Sharon Kay Penman's crown is safely in situ.

[reannon_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I've read most of Anne Perry's books and liked them, but this one far surpasses the others. Perhaps it is just that it is easier to break free of constraints in a stand alone novel, one that is set in an entirely different time and place from her series.

The story is set in Constantinople in the 1270s. Anna Lascaris Zarides has come to Constantinople from her home in Nicea. Her twin brother Justinian has been exiled for his role in the death of the popular Bessarion, who was leading the fight against a union of the Orthodox Church and the Roman. The emperor, Michael Peleogus, has agreed to the union with Rome in order to save Constantinople from being attacked by Crusaders as it was 70 years previously, an attack from which it has not recovered.

Anna is a physician, but in order to operate openly in the city she pretends to be a eunuch. She gathers what information she can over a few years, treating everyone from the emperor to the poor while doing so.

The strength of this epic work is in its characters. Anna is an outstanding character, but there are others, from all sides of the various conflicts going on. The most amazing character is Zoe, who saw her mother raped and murdered in the sack of the city in 1204, and who will do anything to avoid a repeat of that disaster. Zoe is Constantinople, beautiful, old, cunning, a master of plots and counterplots. Other important characters include a papal legate, a Venetian soldier, the Orthodox clergyman who is determined that the city will not abandon its faith, and others. They are rich and complex characters, driven by the needs of their positions and beliefs, some convinced they know God's will, others seeking God's grace.

It is a long book, but tightly written... not a wasted page in it. I think that when 2020 comes around, this book will be considered one of the best of the decade.

Disclaimer: I received my copy of the book free from the Amazon Vine program in exchange for a review. I would have reviewed this book the same, however, if I had not gotten it free.