Elodie Harper’s The Wolf Den perfectly exemplifies what I look for in historical fiction: stories about women set in “lesser known” historical periods, with an eye towards research and a strong grasp of human interactions. This books is well-written, insightful, and fascinating, perfect for readers who love Ancient Rome but would like to wander a bit further afield than the Capitoline Hill and the emperors’ inner circle.

This is the story of Amara, a sex worker in Pompeii’s lupanar. Raised as a doctor’s daughter in Greece, she was sold as a slave by her mother when the family fortunes took a downturn. Now she belongs to Felix, a cunning yet cruel pimp-cum-loan shark, and works alongside Felix’s other four women, “fishing” for men day in and day out. All of the whores dream of buying their freedom, but the tiny commission Felix allows them is barely enough to for food and lamp oil.

On its face, The Wolf Den seems to advertise a very grim story—a familiar and timeless tale of women being abused and used for the benefit of men. (A story that, honestly, nobody needs to read, because our history books are already full of that shit.) And to be fair, Harper does not paint a particularly bright picture of Amara or her friends’ day-to-day lives. These are not women who became sex workers by choice, and they have almost no agency with respect to…well, anything. Regardless, Harper is able to make this a very human story in the way that the focus of the narrative is almost always on the relationships between Felix’s five whores. Amara, Dido, Victoria, Cressa, and Beronice are the heart of this book—rivals for money and attention, but ultimately sisters bonded by a very specific shared experience.

Beyond that, I think that Amara herself is a very interesting character (and incredibly well-written). At the beginning, she has only recently been brought to Pompeii, and she’s still shell-shocked by the abrupt change in her circumstances. Over time, she becomes a survivor. Yet to do so, Amara becomes hardened and calculating, learning from her master Felix how to manipulate and harden her emotions. She leaves behind those who are too tied to scruples or soft feelings, which is entirely understandable, but the end result is also that she loses those who might have been kind to her. In spite of her sometimes brutal actions, Amara thrives where her more conscientious peers do not. I love character arcs like this, especially when done well. (It’s the reason I love Gone with the Wind even as I struggle with the hideous racism: Scarlett O’Hara takes care of herself by any means necessary.) Throughout The Wolf Den, Harper does a great job in subtly showing the shift in Amara’s personality as she becomes more jaded and desperate to leave Felix’s brothel, as her actions become more and more extreme. This is 100% a book where I would defend the “unlikable” heroine to the death.

Another thing to note is that in writing The Wolf Den, Harper chose to use a more “modern” idiom than one might expect from a book set during the early Roman Empire. Words like “sexy” and “girlfriend,” etc. are peppered throughout the dialogue, and I imagine that could be jarring for readers who expect all historical characters to speak in Old Timey Dialect. For myself, I appreciated how the author’s language choice signaled the casual nature of the setting. It reminded me of Lindsey Davis’ Marcus Didius Falco books, which also take place during the reign of Vespasian and are written in an even more colloquial style.

Altogether, this book met and exceeded expectations. A novel about Pompeiian prostitutes is exactly why I take the time to weed through the overwhelming number of “white woman defying Nazis” novels that permeate the genre. The Wolf Den is smart, well-researched, and displays a complex understanding of human nature and how different people react and adapt to adversity. A really, really solid read.

The Wolf Den is a well written historical fiction, brutally honest, centering around ordinary people instead of emperors or great heroes of the past. It talks about slavery, survival but also friendship and sisterhood.

This was a totally absorbing read, with some great characterisation and a real sense of place. I did think that it ended a little abruptly but I then read that it is the first part of a trilogy which explains it. I did think the sensibilities of the characters were a little too modern at times, and sometimes the author had a slightly ambivalent attitude to some of the male characters e.g. Felix, which was slightly offputting. Thanks to the publishers and Netgalley for the opportunity to access an ARC.

This novel was a wonderful read. I could not put this down and missed out on some sleep to read it. Who needs to be awake at work? I NEEDED to read this. First of all, it's one of those stories that could easily be a heavy read that makes you feel ill and depressed reading, and while the author does not sugar coat any of the horrors of the life of a prostitute in Pompeii, neither does it become too gruesome to read on. I think Elodie Harper found a good balance between being sensitive about difficult topics and still presenting a faithful image of reality.

I read Silence of the Girls by Pat Barker a while ago and while I liked it, I did not love it really. The Wolf Den by Elodie Harper gave me exactly what I kind of hoped for from SotG - a main character who is vulnerable but smart, a bit cold and very resourceful. Amara is a wonderful main character to follow and I loved seeing the world of Pompeii through her eyes, and I also enjoyed that while the people of Pompeii believed in gods, they (the gods) don't make an appearance at all, giving you the impression of a realistic and well-built world. I also loved the secondary characters in their flawed personalities and how they brought this story to life.

Also! I need to look up Pompeii's history because I'm pretty sure a lot of historical references are going over my head.

I've been lucky enough to receive this as an ARC and I absolutely loved it. I cannot really think of any complaints about this novel, although I was wondering at times if some of the characters didn't fall a bit too much on the usual tropes, but I think they have been written in a beautifully human way and the tropes didn't bother me much at all.

Highly recommend this!

This book is a tough read just simply by it's subject. But that's not why I decided to give up. I think the historical aspect is present, but it's underwhelming for a historical fiction novel. The female characters are not particularly distinct from one another, although I did think the loyalty between them was well done.

But the formatting of this eARC is really poor, with paragraphs squished and spaced at weird intervals. Between that and boredom with the slow plot, I stopped reading.

Thank you NetGalley, Union Square & Co, and Elodie Harper for an arc of this book in exchange for an honest review! The Wolf Den follows Amara, who works in a brothel in Pompeii, as her story progresses on from Ad 74. I really enjoyed this novel and I think it’s one of the best historical fiction books that I’ve ever read.

I really enjoyed Harper’s writing and the way that she described Amara and the rest of the women. As you go through the book, you learn more and more about these other characters and learn to care for each of them. They’ve all had extremely difficult lives and rely on one another to help survive what they go through. I also thought Amara was very interesting as a main character because of her strength, wits, and also the anger that she holds inside. I was impressed with how the author compares Amara to her pimp, Felix, at times, showcasing the darker parts of her personality and yet showing how she remains a good person. It was also interesting getting to read about the male slaves as well as the female ones, because it helped provide another point-of-view to the story.

I was drawn in by the setting of Pompeii and really enjoyed the historical descriptions and quotes at the beginning of each chapter. The book was honest, making it hard to read at times because of the horrors that these women go through, but this is one of the most important aspects of the story. I enjoyed that the sexual scenes were written in a way that showed how scary they truly were, instead of making them sexy, and showed the pain and grief that they caused these women. Overall, it was refreshing to read a story about women that history sometimes leaves behind.

This is a great story of sisterhood, survival, and hope. I recommend it for fans of historical fiction, because I can understand why it might be a bit boring for people that don’t like the genre. However, I really enjoyed it, and I’m looking forward to picking up the sequel.

This book is exactly as it’s printed on the cover…beautiful, brutal and compelling!
I inhaled it in one day, i was instantly pulled me in and couldn’t put it down! You can feel that the author has whole heartedly wrote about these Pompeii brothel slaves with compassion, honesty and empathy. It’s horrifyingly unthinkable what they had to endure, to not have freedom, shackled to a life they had no control over, mastered by brutality. The story focuses on the strengths of sisterhood and survival of well rounded characters Amara, Dido, Victoria, Cressa and Beronice but also there’s insights into the lives of male slaves too. It’s a brilliant historical fiction and I’m definitely going to be picking up the next one as soon as it’s released!!

I really enjoyed this read! If you're into historical novels but are looking for something a bit easier to chew on then this is your book. It follows a group of women who were either born, sold or captured into slavery in ancient Pompeii and the struggles of their everyday lives.

None of the women use their real names, and in-fact they each recreate themselves to varying degrees to face the circumstances of their now lives. There are extremely violent occurrences daily and every detail of their lives lacks any form of decency; yet somehow these woman rise above their circumstances and often outwit those men who deem themselves their superiors.

It's a decent story of female perseverance with a good dose of historical detailing. Even though the subject matter is serious and dark, it's an easy read that will leave you waiting for the next instalment.

This was an ARC.

This book has made me question my faith in humanity somehow. Ok, I know it's historical fiction and that this things happened a long, long time ago, but it still made me so mad that these beautiful, wonderful women had to suffer so much on the hands of men. So if I have to start my review somewhere, I will do it talking about how this book is not cruel and explicitly sad as others books I've read, yet what it gives you it's more than enough to make you feel everything the characters are feeling, the anger, the hope, the good and the bad. The writing makes everything feel so real, so close to you at that moment, that it is definitely the thing that made me love this book the most.

Going deeper into the characters, I wanna divide the next part of my review in three groups:

-Amara
Our main character comes from a wealthy family, but when her father dies, they lose everything, so her mother sells her. She finds herself on a position that she never, ever even imagined she would have to face. She faces it with strength, way more than I would ever think of having in this kind of situations. She hates it, yet she know she needs it to survive. I spent all the book worried about her wellbeing, about her doing things she shouldn't be doing, but it's also sad because she had to give up so much during the book to get her final goal: her freedom. I loved her wits, the way she managed so many situations so she could get it her way without making so much fuss about what was happening. I really liked her as a main character, it really makes the story go on.

-The women
My babies. Oh, my girls, I wanted to get into the book and hug them all. They all suffer so much, and I love that even when Amara was the main character and the narrator, we get to know more of the feelings of the other women. I think the author made Amara very emphatic in order to get to explore more of the other characters around her, and that's very clear on the way she represents the things these girls get to live. They go through awful things, from the men who mistreat and hurt them to the things they have to do so they don't get hurt anymore. They share their hopes, how awful it is having to hang onto things that hurt them so they can feel loved or happy. They stories made me cry a few times, because I was screaming how much better they deserved. Their lives, getting to finally listen to the things they went through, it has been as awful as it has been enlighten. I love them so much.

-The men
I hate them all. But I also pity them. Ok, most of them were awful, but while this book talks about the girls and their cruel lives, it also makes a good work talking about how nobody was free from suffering the cruelties of other men and the cruelties of having necessities and not knowing how to deal with them. I hated the men of this book, all but one or two I think, but I also felt the hope that at some point they would be good and they would help the girls. That's why I say this book makes an amazing job representing the emotions of all the characters, because it made me feel a hopeless hope of waiting for something good from the worst of them.

This book takes you to the deeps of the Ancient Pompeii, to the creatures of the dark parts of the streets, but it also tells you that they were human, that they had feelings. That they were women, like me, like you, that had to live in a world ruled by men. Sometimes, it feels like nothing had changed.

I was so excited for a book about ancient Rome set in Pompeii, and that's where my excitement ended once digging into this book. I just wish there was more of a plot throughout the book, and I'd hardly say it was character driven because I never felt like I really knew who the characters were. Each woman that works at the brothel has a cookie cutter personality and it felt like they each really had one trait that was hammered in as their whole being. I got to the 25% mark and thought that the plot was going to kick in, I continued reading and realized I was 80% in and still nothing had really happened. I'm disappointed that this didn't work for me but I know that many others did enjoy this.

Ancient Pompeii makes for an interesting backdrop to this fascinating look at the past culture and people of that time. Reads easily like a family saga, just a very dysfunctional family!

A beautifully written novel about female friendship and sisterhood, defying the odds at a time when being a woman was incredibly hard! With a fantastic cast of characters, this book will make you weep with anger, sadness and joy. Highly recommend to fans of books such as The Song of Achilles.

As a historian first, I was so excited to read this book. Sadly, I got about 40% in when I finally decided to DNF. The beginning was so strong but I saw myself getting bored with the characters. It was starting to drag for me. This book just wasn't for me..

So unique. I've never read anything like it. This girl-power story of a Pompeii brothel centers on Amara, sex-trafficked by her own mother and sold to a cold and heartless pimp named Felix. She is close to a younger slave named Dido, but many of the "wolves" in the den help one another in order to survive. A brilliant doctor's daughter whose only crime is poverty, Amara is determined to gain her freedom—at any cost. Amara becomes a musical act with Dido and sees the wealthy and glittering side of Pompeii, and befriends Pliny the Elder at one of the parties where she performs.

What amazes me is how unsexy this book manages to be when sex is practically all that happens. The pain and the grief of the women overwhelms any titillation the reader might get from the depictions of sex, which are portrayed as either a cold calculus or a despairing submission by the women (except for one green-eyed Briton who fights tooth and nail against her captor and rapists), and brutal rape by the men. There are all the rivalries both within the Wolf Den and between the Wolf Den and other brothels, that one would expect. The depiction of Pompeii life is well-researched and very convincing, especially given how little of Pompeii remains.

The ending seemed a little wobbly but it definitely fit the novel.

I was hooked on this novel from the very first page. The historical setting is so different from any other historical fiction book I’ve read. And within historical fiction, this book belongs to one of my favorite “genres” – books that tell the stories of women who have been overlooked in history. For who has been overlooked more than those who participated in the world’s oldest profession? And that leads me to talk about The Wolf Den’s incredible characters.

It has been a while since I read a book where the characters really came to life for me. But that’s exactly what The Wolf Den did. Each of the characters is so unique and I really sympathized with each and every one of them. One that stood out to me in particular was Victoria, who is strong and confident on the outside, but ultimately a softie on the inside.

Almost all of the main characters go through some sort of character arc throughout the book. The main character, Amara, is of course no exception. She struggles with what she has to do and who she has to become in order to save herself from a life in the brothel. I found this internal struggle to be so profound. It says a lot about what women have to do to lift themselves up in a world that is constantly trying to keep them down.

Of course, the role of a first book in a series is generally to introduce the characters and build the world for readers. That way, we can continue to be invested in their stories and live in that world throughout the trilogy.

Sometimes, this world-building comes at the expense of the plot. But as Harper demonstrates in The Wolf Den, not always.

From beginning to end, this book is a whirlwind and I never once felt that the plot was slow. There are so many new characters and plot points introduced that it would be impossible to get bored. I loved that Harper did not focus only on the main character. She gave all the characters struggles, enriched lives, desires, and obstacles to deal with.

Unsurprisingly, the obstacles are often created by the men in the novel. I noticed while I was reading that not one of the male characters lacks flaws (except for one, maybe). There are not many “good” male characters in this book, but even the ones that are good have their faults. Likewise, even the most evil ones have their sympathetic moments. Harper is an absolute master at making the characters come to life, and as a result, the world in The Wolf Den becomes that much more real.

In an effort to portray these women’s lives as they actually would have been, Harper does not spare any of the gory details. This book can get quite intense and triggering at times, so I highly suggest you look into the trigger warnings before reading it.

I can promise you, however, that this is a book worth reading. The Wolf Den gets right to the heart of what I love about historical fiction. It takes the stories of people who have been overlooked by history and brings them to life.

I absolutely cannot wait to get my hands on the trilogy’s next installment, The House with the Golden Door.

The concept of this book is really interesting. Amara was a likeable main character and there were a variety of side characters who helped build the world for the novel and provided incredible side stories and perspectives.

This book reminded me why I love ancient historical fiction and I really appreciated the beginning of each chapter in which the author included quotes of ancient texts or graffiti from the walls of Pompeii.

I did find that the story dragged at points and could've been shorter, I understand that part of the length was to go through the motions of life as a prostitute and how difficult it was. I can forgive the length for that.

I was really excited about the premise of this book but found the writing choppy. Further, I had difficulty reading the text on my Kindle due to formatting issues, so I was unable to finish the book.

I was very impressed with this story. I love that we finally get a story based on the life of Roman Women who are forced to work in brothels. I feel like this broke outside of the typical Roman Historical Fiction box and offered something new to the genre. I also enjoyed the fact that this story was set in Pompeii which is a refreshing change from most books typically set in the City of Rome

While I found the premise to be intriguing, I wasn’t a fan of the execution of The Wolf Den. The strength of the book lies in the relationships between the women at The Wolf Den, but it wasn’t enough to sustain the stagnant plot. I didn’t find Amara to be a standout character and not enough happened in the first 1/3 of the book to keep my interest. Certainly an interesting look at life in Pompeii as a slave, but not enough meat to it.

3.5 stars. rounded up.

The Wolf Den is particularly interesting for us in the modern age because it allows a somewhat-fictional somewhat-historically accurate look into the lives of women in ancient Pompeii.

Today, while the city may be famous for its subsequent destruction, Harper eloquently crafts a tale about a bustling melting pot, thriving with debauchery and wonder alike.

The language hold nothing back in terms of describing the crude everyday lives of Pompeii's brothels.

I think the book's greatest strength is its emphasis on the relationship of the women within the brothel. Their friendship and camaraderie were delightful while the efforts they take in keeping each other safe and their mutual struggles to survive were brutal, realistic and heartfelt.

It isn't an action-packed, gore-feasted story but one of the tried and true existence of women who were and are often overlooked in history. For that alone, I think it's worth a read from any history buff.