The House with the Golden Door

Written By Miriam Hanna

The House with the Golden Door by Elodie Harper

Reviewed by Mimi
📘📘📘📘

Thank you to @headofzeus for this copy!💙

In part 2 of the Wolf Den Trilogy, we pick up with Amara, a prostitute sold into slavery when her family fell on hard times. She begins this story as a freed woman, the concubine of a wealthy resident of Pompeii who puts her up in a house with staff. She feels safe for the first time but she cannot get complacent. Her security relies on her keeping her patron engaged and feelings she develops for others in the household create a dangerous situation. Her previous pimp is not totally out of her life and that makes her existence a constant risk.

As anyone who saw the review of The Wolf Den will know, I love this sort of book and when it's written as well as this, you can't go wrong. It's fresh storytelling about a group of women history full of drama, intrigue, suspense, danger and just classically compelling story telling. Amara is a brilliant protagonist, she is so clever and has a killer survival instinct. This kind of historical fiction is brilliant escapism and I'm already excited for part 3.

Miriam Hanna

Aka Mimi. I have known Linda for a very, very long time. We grew up together and you learn very quickly that when she gets an idea in her head, you would be an idiot not to back her to see it through. When the idea of the book club came up it was another lightbulb moment where I knew this wasn't only going to be a success but really fun.


I have always been a bookworm. Remember when you were little and you went shopping with your mum or dad and they gave you a toy or something to occupy yourself with whilst you were in the trolley? I used to get books to keep me quiet. They were and are my ultimate form of escapism and more and more they are about understanding who I am as a person. Books make me cry more than films and TV Shows. I can get lost for hours. I love historic fiction, political thrillers and gritty crime novels but also biographies and memoirs of people I find interesting like sportspeople. I was fortunate to be in the Harry Potter generation and if weren't for those books I don't know what I would have. Young literature was so poor at the point. To have a book that had me and my family queuing up at midnight to buy was seriously special.

Whether you listen to audio books, read off a kindle or stick to carrying around good old fashioned hard copies (that's me!) I truly believe reading is the best way to spend some time every day.


The books I would have with me on a desert island? 📚🏝Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Akzaban, Lean In by Sheryl Sandberg, Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, The Chimp Paradox by Steve Peters, The Power by Naomi Alderman, Mom & Me & Mom by Maya Angelou, Goodnight Mister Tom by Michelle Magorian, Born a Crime by Trevor Noah and The Time Traveller’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger.

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