This book is a great piece of historical fiction. It took me while to get into but once I did I couldn’t put it down. This is a very real historical novel it doesn’t try and romanticise a time in history which would have been hard for women of all statuses. Its depiction of the life of female slaves is very well written and quite graphic in places but it manages to create a sense of atmosphere whilst being respectful to the women of that time, The story itself is really well written and flows at a good pace. The characters all feel very real and well rounded as you get to know them and their complex relationships. It really does keep you interested right to the very end,

This book is quite simply amazing, I loved every page. This is the story of Amara and her friends, all prostitutes, all slaves and all compelled to work in the Lupanar, the famous brothel in Pompeii, ruled over by the cruel and demanding Felix. I expected it to be salacious, but it wasn't in any way, instead it tells how Amara, much more clever than anyone gives her credit for, fights to gain her freedom and liberty. This is a story of friendship and sisterly love amongst The Wolves as they were known by the men they were forced to entertain many times every night. Elodie Harper's descriptive text is so good that the reader can almost smell the latrine and the sweaty bodies of the customers, and yet it is beautifully written so that pictures of Pompeii and it's people are there in the imagination. A really good read, not to be missed.

I admit that I often struggle with historical fiction stories. Although I love the premise of them and do enjoy reading them, they often take me a lot longer to read and I struggle with engagement – putting them down a lot more often than other genres. I’m happy to say this was not the case with The Wolf Den which I devoured from start to finish!

Set in ancient Pompeii, The Wolf Den tells the story of Amara; a woman who has been sold into slavery and works in a brothel. We see the year through her eyes as she tries to make a name for herself and work on her ultimate goal of becoming a free woman. Amara is a strong female lead and the story keeps her perspective all the way through. She is ambitious and interesting and we feel fully empathetic towards her plight. The other characters described are all fully formed and well-described too, from the other women in the brothel to the shady men who run the city.

The setting of Pompeii felt very well researched and never felt jarring or unrealistic. Having been to the ruined city nothing felt out of place and the author also includes a quote from a book written at the time or a snippet of graffiti found in the area at the start of her chapters to immerse us into the world. There is, of course sexual content although it is done tastefully and an undercurrent of fear runs along the setting in a way that is unsettling – this is a city where the women dare not travel too far without a man to escort them.

The plot itself was well paced and kept the reader hooked into finding out the fate of Amara and her friends. Although there’s no cliff hangers or big reveal, I was really invested into finding out about Amara and could have read more easily. The book also ramps up to a great climax and the ending is even more poignant with knowing in hindsight about what is coming to Pompeii in 79AD. There’s some really moving parts to the book and it’s a sad and grim portrayal of the women who lived at the time whose stories are so often silenced.

Overall, The Wolf Den is a compelling and moving read – highly recommended. Thank you to NetGalley & Head of Zeus – Apollo for the chance to read the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I found 'The Wolf Den' utterly compelling. Although there is no actual magic nor godly interference as in Madeleine Miller's 'Circe' (which I adored), this didn't affect my enjoyment. Anyone hoping for the eruption of Vesuvius to feature will be disappointed, although I wonder if that will take place in the sequel.

I've given four stars rather than five because the prose didn't soar - it's quite functional and prosaic in a way, something of a disappointment when compared to books such as the aforementioned 'Circe'. Also, the plotting at times felt a little blunt and simplistic. But where 'The Wolf Den' shines is its characters and, even more importantly, the bonds of love and hatred between them. The protagonist Amara was complex in the push-pull she constantly felt between trying to survive, and caring for others. There was a large cast of women, and yet each of them was distinct in my mind - something that I often struggle with when faced with a number of characters.

Sensitively writing a world that centres around a brothel is no easy feat. While we can only try to imagine how it might have felt to be an enslaved woman working in a brothel in Ancient Rome, Harper made the women's struggles and friendships feel palpably real. I am eagerly awaiting the next book in the series.

(With thanks to Head of Zeus and NetGalley for this ebook in exchange for an honest review)

A fascinating read, deftly told. It took a good few chapters to draw me in, but once it had I was hooked on Harper's depiction of time and place (and rather refreshing to be out of Ancient Greece at last in terms of the trend for revisiting those tales from a woman's pov). End clearly heralds the sequel to come, albeit a little abruptly, Have no doubt this – and the novels that follow – will be a huge success.

What a wonderful story! The Wolf Den of the title is a brothel in Pompeii and the main characters are the prostitutes who live and work there. The narrative focuses mostly on the story of a young Greek woman trafficked into slavery and prostitution after the death of her doctor father. She is now known as Amara although this was not her birth name. However the stories of the other residents of the brothel (including the male owner) are also told and the reader is able to understand their motivations and actions. There is a strong sense of sisterhood among the women even when they are foced to compete with each other. Their intelligence and their love and care for each other is evident throughout the book. Elodie Harper gives great insight into the lives of these women in Pompeii and the class, race and gender distinctions in the society of the time. The intersectionality of discrimination across these areas is important to the development of the plot as we get insights into the lives of male slaves, the linguistic snobbery among those born to the Latin language, the denial of peoples' pasts and more. There are a few actual historical characters but they are not the focus of the story. Rather, this is a story which gives voice to those who have been written out of history and Elodie Harper does this beautifully. I am thrilled to find out that there will be another two books in this series and I will be rereading The Wolf Den before I move onto the others and recommending it to friends and family. Thank you to the publisher via Net Galley for a complimentary ARC of this book in return for an honest review.

An interesting book about the lives of a group of women who ,either through enslavement or circumstance, work as prostitutes in a Pompeii brothel sometime before the eruption of Vesuvius which destroyed the city
If you have been to Pompeii and visited the brothel ,it’s even more interesting as you can really visualise the places described and the lives these woman led.They were treated like chattels by the brothel’s owner ,and I really felt sympathy for them.There are lots of interesting details about life in Pompeii and the lives of both rich and poor people there.
The book ends in a way that makes me think there could be a sequel,
Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for an ARC in return for an honest review which reflects my own opinion.

Amara, a young Greek slave girl is bought by Felix to work in one of the many brothels in Pompeii. There she works alongside Victoria who was rescued as a baby from the town dump, Beronice who is in love with one of the male slaves working for Felix, Cressa who mourns her child who was taken from her at the age of 3 and sold and Dido a beautiful young woman from Carthage who was captured by pirates and is understandably finding her new life difficult. They make an impressive cast of characters, each one carefully drawn and fully rounded. Harper brings to life the streets of Pompeii and makes you feel as though you are there with the women as they deal with their hard lives.

I adored this book. Ever since visiting Pompeii I have wanted to read a book set in that place. I did start one but it didn't engage me so when I saw this on NetGalley I knew I had to read it. There is a welcome trend of women writing about the women of the ancient world. Too often ignored their stories go unheard. Novels such as Pat Barker's Silence of the Girls, Madeleine Miller's Circe and now The Wolf Den shed light on the lives of women in those times. The Wolf Den is brilliant and I look forward to reading the second in the trilogy and to finding out more about Amara and how her life turns out. Thanks to NetGalley and Head of Zeus for the ARC.

I was kindly given a copy to review by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This was the type of book that I just couldn't put down - I finished it in a day!

The Wolf Den follows the story of Amara, a whore working in Pompeii. She was once a doctor's daughter but was sold into a life of slavery through a series of unfortunate circumstances. This is not a fairy tale, where she finds true love and escapes slavery. This is a story of a girl trying to escape a prison for a golden one.

The characters were rich and the constant reminders that we are in Ancient Rome (following a Greek girl) really kept my head in the world. The author doesn't shy away from continuous sex scenes, whether that be sexual assault, violent sexual encounters, orgies etc. She really paints a picture of what all of these poor women had to go through. If you've ever seen the TV series 'Spartacus' (which is amazing), imagine that we're following one of the girls lives who entertains the gladiators. By being graphic, the author really keeps you gripped wondering if this client will kill a girl./hurt a girl or maybe save a girl.

The story is full of strong female characters who bind together to get through their ordeal. The other slaves in the story help to cement this idea of slave and master e.g not being able to marry another slave as you have literally nothing to give each other. It can be heart breaking to think of all of the sacrifices slaves made whether it be love, family, dignity etc. They were literally seen as an object to play with.

The Wolf Den is a highly gripping read and I do hope there's a sequel.

This is a beautiful book. It’s so close to perfect.

I had quibbles at the start. The story centres on Amara, a young Greek woman recently sold into slavery and who now works in a famous brothel called the Lupanar—the Wolf Den—in Pompeii. It's a grim life; the girls have absolutely no control, something brought into sharp relief by a particularly disturbing moment in which one of the new acquisitions screams and fights while "entertaining" a customer. When you begin the book, the focalisation is a little jarring (this is the first time in a long time I’ve encountered 3rd person present), the prose seems to lack refinement, the characters are a little wooden, and the setting a little flat. But, despite the author’s persistence in a very strange use of commas (or, more often, lack thereof), things soon pick up.

And by the time you reach the halfway mark absolutely none of that matters. Harper has an exquisite handle on character: the humour the girls find among their trauma, the internal politicking, the depth of feeling they have for one another while needing to look out for themselves, the complexities of the pimp who—despite being among the most morally reprehensible of the cast of characters—is my favourite of the lot. There’s not a perfect person among them (well, maybe one or two, but you just know that will never end well), and as Amara, lovely, clever Amara moved through her story I became breathless with anxious anticipation, fearing for her safety, fearing that she’d never reach the end without becoming someone she despised. Harper threads that needle expertly. You are with Amara all the way, rooting for her, questioning her decisions, understanding them nonetheless. All of the characters are so heartbreakingly human, those in the proverbial gutter clawing helplessly upwards while the privileged sit heedless of their good fortune and almost never understand the damage they do.

The book ends so abruptly you almost can’t believe it, but in the end you realise how perfect that ending is—highlighting what you can finally see has been the central relationship all along, leaving you with unanswered questions rather than giving you answers you either don’t want or don’t have time to explore. It’s funny, because I’m usually terribly wary of sequels (a second so often sours the first), but actually it is very clear that Amara’s story is not done. Harper simply and correctly closes the door on a tumultuous period in her protagonist’s life. It’s also clear that Amara has so much more life to live, so much more to achieve, so many more places to go. It seems unlikely that Harper will ever revisit Amara, but if she did, I’d be first in line to buy the book. As it is, I’ll be buying my own hardback of this when it publishes.

UPDATE: the author has confirmed that this is the first in a planned trilogy, so rejoice!

4.5 stars

A heart-rending book about the realities of slavery, especially for prostitutes in Pompeii. Amara is one, and this is mainly her story, but also the story of Dido, Cressna, Beronice and Victoria, and,latterly, Brittanica, as well as Paris, They all have heartbreaking stories to tell. It seems that ordinary citizens, and even slaves such as Menander, do not have the life lived by prostitutes. I was moved by it. Thank you to netgalley and the publishers for giving me an advance copy of this book.

I don’t usually travel further back than WW1 when I read but this incredible book transported me back to Ancient Rome.
The main character Amara, is sold into slavery and prostitution when her doctor father dies and the money runs out.
We follow her life in The Wolf Den with her fellow she-wolves under the control of their brutal, manipulative pimp Felix.
They do whatever they have to to survive and draw strength and comfort from each other.
Elodie Harper brought Pompei to life with her wonderful descriptions and the way she depicted the women, made me stay up all night reading as I had to find out their fate.
One of my favourite books this year and I’m so grateful to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

One of the best books I have read. One of the reasons is that the story gets straight in and the characters were interesting. I loved the communications they had.

Set in the stews of Pompeii, some time before Etna spewed

I think I set my own bar too high, with this one. Harper writes well, her characters do come alive, but this was very much a book I read from the outside, looking in (perhaps just as well, given the subject matter) I was holding other books, written from the perspective of women trapped in a relentlessly masculine classical world, in memory, heart and mind, and Harper’s fell short. This is not Madeleine Miller (Circe) – nor Pat Barker (the Silence of the Girls) nor anything like Mary Renault’s extraordinary inhabitation of the classical world.

All I can say is that those writers seem to write from inside their created characters, taking the reader into reading from inside of them, also, or at least, feeling they absolutely resonate empathetically with them. I did not find this, with The Wolf Den.

My other comparison with a book which brings to life an alien culture, making everything about that culture astonishingly present, was my most recent reading of Edward Rutherfurd’s China. Rutherfurd is particularly good at getting inside his research and creating other times and places so intensely that the reader inhabits that world.

Here, despite, when I thought about it, a welter of physical detail about classical Pompeii, I didn’t find myself there. Somehow, I was not engaged, and not moved from 'this is interesting' into anything more potently absorbing

This is a fast read, and it is perhaps pejorative to say this would be a one for a flight, train journey or a holiday where you might not want a book demanding total surrender. I just expected or hoped for, more.

I was grateful to have this as a digital ARC from the publishers, Head of Zeus/Apollo via NetGalley

What an amazing book! It seems strange to be saying that about a book built around the subject of enslaved prostitution. However, Elodie Harper successfully brings both characters and history to life.
Amara finds herself far removed from her beginnings as a doctor’s daughter in Greece. A tragic turn of events following his death sees her used as a concubine and later sold as a prostitute under the control of Felix after being transported to ancient Pompei.
The resulting narrative centres on the friendships built up between the women enslaved within the brothel and the hardships they are forced to endure to provide for the cold and calculating Felix. Whilst the subject matter is difficult, Elodie addresses it without too much graphic detail although be aware there is quite a steady stream of ‘F’ word inclusions.
Having visited Pompei several times over the years I really enjoyed the fact that some characters such as Plini and Menander really existed, although of course the narrator gives them characterisations we can not truly know about. However , the remains of their luxurious villas are there to see, as is a brothel depicting graphic paintings of services provided.

The more I read of Amara and her fellow enslaved women the more I found it impossible to put the book down. I was desperate to know if there would be a happy ending. When the ending was finally executed it was not the one I had hoped and anticipated for Amara but showed that she had sheer determination and strength of character far beyond what I had expected in her quest for a way out of the life she had been forced into.

Although there have been an awful lot of historical fictions written from the point of view of women, this one feels surprisingly fresh. A wonderful mix of historical detail, friendship and violence, with the ever present looming threat of that moment in Pompeii.

This was a beautifully written and deeply disturbing story, imagining what it would be like to be one of the women forced to work in the brothels of Pompeii.

Amara used to be a doctor's daughter. She had a family and a life. That was before her father died and there was no money left. Sold into slavery she is bought by the owner of the Wolf Den in Pompeii, forced to give up her body night after night and endure endless cruelty.

It's impossible not to like Amara and all of the other women who are so important to her. They all have such distinctive personalities. From proud, beautiful Victoria to kind Cressa and deeply sad Dido, they look out for one another because nobody else will. They walk the streets of the city, knowing that the few moments of freedom they have are nothing. They will never truly be free, because even though slaves can buy their freedom, they will never earn enough to do so. And yet they manage to laugh, to convince one another to survive each day.

Some of the girls never had a life before, but Amara and Dido both mourn the lives they left behind and the people they used to be.

The author confronts the violence directly and it is laid out in sharp detail. Women are beaten, raped and emotionally abused, and there is little they can do to stop it. Even though it hurt to read, I am glad it wasn't glossed over. Acknowledging that this was what women had to endure is a part of our history. I do think that readers need to be in the right place to read this though.

You know this book isn't going to have a happy ending. How can it. I often felt sick with dread while reading it because I had no idea how it would end, and I wished there was something I could do to protect all of the characters.

For all I enjoyed the book, there was a moment where it was mentioned that two characters were speaking Spanish, and I was really pulled out of the story. It didn't make sense to me, as Spanish developed from when Latin was brought to the country. So surely at the same time as the book takes place, Spanish as a language would not have existed? For all I speak it, I know embarrassingly little about its history, so I could be wrong. But this small detail really distracted me from the story.

Overall, this was extremely well written. I don't know that I can say I enjoyed it exactly, given the subject. But I cared so much about the characters, and it will stay with me for a long time.

Loved this. A fascinating story about what women do to survive. Set in Pompeii's most famous brothel, The Wolf Den, Elodie Harper’s brilliant and unflinching novel draws us into the world of an enslaved prostitute, Amara, and her fellow she-wolves.

Such an interesting and unusual tale, I couldn't put it down! Really enjoyed the style of Elodie Harper's writing and I'll definitely be on the lookout for more from this author. Harper's characters are brilliantly written and very believable, and it was great fun exploring the world of ancient Pompeii for a few days. This is the perfect book to escape with during lockdown, I highly recommend.

I think what I most enjoyed about this was the women and their friendship,as they battled to survive every day life,having been sold into prostitution.
Its a grim life,but they make the best of what they can.
Not a time period I've read much about,so that was interesting too.
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