The Wolf Den is a novel by Elodie Harper which is set in Pompeii in the 1st century CE in Pompeii’s lupanar which is the brothel of the ancient city. Harper also tried to remain true to historical fact when it came to devising the women's backstories. The excavation of Pompeii, the industrial hub of the region and Herculaneum, a small beach resort, has given unparalleled insight into Roman life.

I asked my friends to clean my house instead of throwing me a baby shower - every mother-to-be should have a nesting party! It is not always a way of making us feel like this could have happened yesterday, but it definitely feels very immediate. The Wolf Den is at its heart a tale of female solidarity and sisterhood, of women having each other’s backs and caring for one another when nobody else will. Author Elodie Harper remembered the women who worked at the real Lupanar by taking their names for characters in The Wolf Den. Set in the seedy yet complex milieu of Pompeii's brothels, Harper's masterful first historical novel follows Amara and her fellow 'she-wolves' through a city where opportunity is rife for even the lowest born slave.If you do not believe me, I am going to add some graffiti found at Pompeii (all in translation from usually Latin or Greek). It is beautifully written and truly gives a raw insight into what it would have been like to be a woman in the ancient world.

The women come from different countries and have different histories, but they share Amara’s constant pain and shame – particularly sweet, pretty Dido, who becomes Amara’s partner in a performing duo that catches the attention of a different class of punter to the men who visit the brothel.A series of cramped, dark cells with thick stone walls, it is where women like Harper's character Amara were forced to live, sleep, eat, and sell their bodies for sex. Berenice is from Egypt, born into slavery, but she comes from a completely different part of the Roman Empire. I did not want it to be a tragic tale where everything is just awful, and I also did not want it to be about giggling girls.

A Pompeii brothel in first century AD might not be the obvious setting for a novel about female empowerment, but Harper’s vibrant and thrilling story is steeped in historical detail while remaining contemporary in its concerns.He said that a column of smoke 'like an umbrella pine' rose from the volcano and made the towns around it as black as night. I loved and admired her loyalty to her friends as well as her determination to be free - even if some of the means she went to were very troublesome. They go to the tavern and they are friendly with the innkeeper; not every man in this story is awful. Starting from your den all the way to the mountains and streams, the high-end graphics make the game incredibly pleasant. Elodie Harper's vibrant and thrilling story is steeped in historical detail while remaining contemporary in its concerns.