Title: The House with the Golden DoorAuthor: Elodie Harper
Series: Wolf Den Trilogy #2
Published by: Union Square & Co. on Sep. 6, 2022
Genres: Historical Fiction
Pages: 472
Format: ARC, Paperback
Source: Union Square & Co.
Book Rating: 8.5/10
The life of a courtesan in Pompeii is glittering, yet precarious…
Amara has escaped her life as a slave in the town’s most notorious brothel, but now her existence depends on the affections of her patron: a man she might not know as well as she once thought.
At night she dreams of the wolf den, still haunted by her past. Amara longs for the women she was forced to leave behind and worse, finds herself pursued by the man who once owned her. In order to be free, she will need to be as ruthless as he is.
Amara knows her existence in Pompeii is subject to Venus, the goddess of love. Yet finding love may prove to be the most dangerous act of all.
We return to Pompeii for the second instalment in Elodie Harper’s Wolf Den Trilogy, set in the town’s lupanar and reimagining the lives of women long overlooked.
Review:
Absorbing, enthralling, and atmospheric!
The House with the Golden Door is a dramatic, multilayered tale that picks up right where The Wolf Den left off, taking us back into the life of Amara, who now as a freedwoman and living in the house provided to her by her patron Rufus, must learn how to contain her grief at the loss of her best friend, continue to secretly construct business deals to try and secure an independent future for herself and those she loves, and ultimately confront the heartbreak she faces due to forbidden love, unimaginable betrayals, societal expectations, and weighty ambitions.
The prose is eloquent and descriptive. The characters are brave, scarred, and resourceful. And the plot is a gripping tale of life, loss, duty, deception, secrets, lies, manipulation, greed, betrayal, corruption, mayhem, savagery, survival, and love.
Overall, The House with the Golden Door is an immersive, intense, gritty sequel by Harper that has left me counting down the days until the third and final novel in this trilogy becomes available so I can finally discover how this thrilling, historical saga will finally conclude.
This novel is available now.
Pick up a copy from your favourite retailer or from one of the following links.
Thank you to Union Square & Co. for gifting me a copy in exchange for an honest review.
About Elodie Harper
Elodie Harper is a journalist and prize-winning short story writer. Her story 'Wild Swimming' won the 2016 Bazaar of Bad Dreams short story competition, which was judged by Stephen King.
She is currently a reporter at ITV News Anglia, and before that worked as a producer for Channel 4 News. Her job as a journalist has seen her join one of the most secretive wings of the Church of Scientology and cover the far right hip hop scene in Berlin, as well as crime reporting in Norfolk where her first two novels were set – The Binding Song and The Death Knock.
Elodie studied Latin poetry both in the original and in translation as part of her English Literature degree at Oxford, instilling a lifelong interest in the ancient world. The Wolf Den is the first in a trilogy of novels about the lives of women in ancient Pompeii.
Photo courtesy of Author's Website.
