The Wolf Den (2021)

Pompeii in AD74 is a working city here, with money, status and survival organised around the lives of enslaved women in a brothel. Amara's ambitions give the history an immediate personal stake, while friendships complicate every available escape. Choose it for a propulsive ancient-world novel centred on people usually left outside imperial biographies. Sexual exploitation and violence are fundamental to the setting. First of a completed trilogy.