Book Review: The Wolf Den by Elodie Harper

The Wolf Den by Elodie Harper
Length: 464 Pages
Genres: Historical Fiction
Rating: 5 out of 5 Stars

A special thanks to NetGalley and Union Square & Co. for providing me with an ARC of this book!

Trigger Warnings in this book for Rape, Slavery, Violence and Gore, Prostitution, and Suicide

"'What do you we ask for?' Dido whispers.

Amara looks up at Venus. It's the closet she has been to the statue. Those painted eyes, so black and wide apart, don't just look watchful, but angry. She is not only the goddess of love, Amara thinks, this is a deity who drives men to madness, a destroyer of warriors, author of the fall of Troy.

'We ask for power over men.'"

One of my first loves as a child (aside from Egyptology) was Greek mythology, which eventually transformed into a love of Roman mythology as well, seeing as so much of it is borrowed from the Greeks. Now, I'm fascinated with anything to do with Ancient Rome/Greece, and have recently been interested specifically in Pompeii and Pliny the Elder, who tragically died during the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius. So I was absolutely thrilled to be allowed to review an ARC for Elodie Harper's novel about a brothel in Pompeii!

The Wolf Den's main character is Amara, a Grecian woman who was the daughter of a doctor and forced by poverty to be sold as a slave by her mother, but all of the women shine in this novel. From strong Victoria, to caring Cressa, to the Egyptian Beronice, and the Punic slave Dido, Amara's best friend, each and every one of them have strong personalities and hopes beyond the bare stone walls of the brothel. And each of them live in fear of their pimp, a brutal man by the name of Felix. Amara knows her only chance of ever escaping is to become a mistress to a powerful man, and hopes that, if she plays her cards right, he might free her.

But it is a dream that seems impossible. It is a life of pleasuring men, not just at night but at every hour, always fishing for the next customer, of starvation and stone cells and the constant loom of death and growing old, unattractive, and thus, useless. Felix even tells them "a whore grows old twice as fast"; an omen of all their futures, should they not change their fortunes.

Amara, using her skill on the lyre, wins herself and Dido a place performing at parties. And perhaps, an opportunity for more. But can she leave her friends behind, if it means never having to go back to The Wolf Den? Can she abandon a quickly growing love for another Grecian slave, Menander, for a rich patron?

Equal parts brutal and moving, The Wolf Den is a story of the women forgotten by time and reviled during their own, women who had nothing but each other, and the one constant of their lives -- servitude. A must read for lovers of the period, who want to move past the poetry and the pomp, and experience the lives of those who made the Roman world turn.