The Wolf Den

Pompeii, AD 74. Amara, the daughter of a Greek doctor, is left penniless by her father's death and sold into slavery, ending up in the Wolf Den, the brothel run by the cruel Felix.

Forced to work as a lupa alongside four other enslaved women, she hides her intelligence, finds both rivalry and sisterhood among them, and looks for any way a slave might win her freedom. Her hopes of companionship with Menander, a potter's slave who shares her Greek origins, are set against the daily violence and debt that hold the women in place.

Elodie Harper drew names and situations from graffiti found in the real brothel at Pompeii. The Wolf Den is the first book of the Wolf Den trilogy, followed by The House with the Golden Door and The Temple of Fortuna, and won the Goldsboro Books Glass Bell Award in 2022. It does not romanticise slavery and includes sexual assault, abuse and suicide.