The House with the Golden Door

I loved the first book in this series by Elodie Harper, The Wolf Den, so I was ecstatic when I found out that there was a sequel coming out and that I had been approved for the Netgalley e-arc.

Amara won her freedom from the violent Felix at the end of The Wolf Den, and now she has to come to terms with her new life and leave her former colleagues behind. Though Amara is free, she is still beholden to the gender norms of ancient Pompeii and her new patron, Rufus. Amara’s character grows a lot and it is gratifying to watch her use and hone her cleverness to outwit all her new challenges.

Like the first book in this series, The House with the Golden Door is brutal and heart-bruising. Amara does her best to make her life less desperate and miserable, but the shadow of being a formerly-enslaved woman relying on one mercurial man still hangs over her. Harper is talented at straddling the line between realistic brutality and glints of hope in her storytelling, so Amara’s harsh experiences feel concrete and relatable, but not like manipulative torture porn (giving side-eye to A Little Life here). The ending of this book is a breathtaking cliffhanger and I am impatient for the final book in this trilogy, yet it also felt satisfying.