I don't think it's a secret that Vesuvius makes an appearance in this book! When I was planning the trilogy I knew the eruption would be a part of the story but didn't want to write a frustratingly abrupt end, leaving readers without proper resolution for the characters.
I am also fascinated by the historic events after the volcanic explosion - which are less well known - and wanted to explore this in my own writing. The Roman state staged a major relief effort to support survivors from Pompeii and other affected towns, with the Emperor Titus himself even putting in a morale boosting appearance. It would have been a time of horror, grief and confusion but also of major building work and new beginnings.
There were key dramatic scenes for Amara in this novel which I have waited years to write so it was exciting and satisfying to reach this point. I was also so focused on writing a book which would repay readers' investment in all my characters, that I don't think I realised the trilogy was actually over until I wrote the last line of the epilogue! It was only then that I felt emotional about saying goodbye. A much harder character to write than Amara, was Pliny. I knew the history of the real Pliny the Elder before I began the series, but somehow that didn't make it any easier.
Pompeii is about as close to time travel as you can get; so much of the place survives - from the wheel ruts on the road to the graffiti on its walls - giving us a unique look at life for ordinary Romans. It is the place's ordinariness that fascinates me most. Vesuvius did not decide what was 'worthy' of preservation when it erupted and this is how we now have a surviving Roman brothel, or a bedroom used by an enslaved family, as well as the glittering mosaics and extraordinary frescoes of the grander villas. It is such an evocative and visually rich environment, I absolutely loved walking its streets and then reimagining the place in my writing.
I've also always been interested in the lives of Roman women and enslaved people, and again Pompeii gives us precious details about their lives. It is one of the few places where we have surviving writing by an enslaved woman, whose name was Methe. A graffiti inscription by the theatre reads: "Methe, slave-girl of Cominia from Atella, loves Chrestus. May Pompeian Venus be dear to them both and may they always live in harmony." Enslaved women were at the absolute bottom of the social pile in antiquity, regularly sexually exploited and disparaged. The prevailing (male) social attitude is summed up in another piece of graffiti in Pompeii: "Take hold of your slave girl whenever you want, it's your right to use her." What I find so poignant about Methe's writing is its assertion of human dignity; Methe considered her own emotional world and personal relationships to be important enough to record. In writing the series I wanted to imagine what this emotional world of Roman women might have looked like, and to expand on the traces which remain in Pompeii. I often thought of Methe when I wrote.
Amara is a purely fictional character but there are echoes of her in the real remains of Pompeii. The lupanar (town brothel) where she works in The Wolf Den is a real place, and still exists as described in the books. Although you cannot see the graffiti as a tourist today, the names of some of the characters - Cressa, Beronice, Felix, Paris, Fabia and Victoria - are all written on the brothel walls. It is possible to visit Julia Felix's home (known as the praedia of Julia Felix) which features in the series and also the Casa dei Ceii and Casa dell'Orso Ferito both of which formed the basis of my fictional House with the Golden Door. I would also say that a visit to the archeological museum at Naples, which contains many of the most beautiful mosaics and frescoes from the site, also gives a sense of Amara's world.
My answer to the recent viral question being posed to men, "how often do you think about the Roman Empire?" would be embarrassing, frankly. I am obsessed with this time period and have been for many years. In that sense my research for the trilogy started long before I ever began planning the books, as I had already read many of the classical texts which I would later draw on for the novels. Much of my research - reading about the history, keeping up with new discoveries at Pompeii, visiting museums, reading Classical authors - is something I would do for fun anyway, even if I wasn't a writer. It is hugely enjoyable then to reflect on what I've been studying and weave it into the books, whether as visual or textual allusions. The epigraphs at the start of each chapter are a part of this too; I think of my writing as an attempt to have a dialogue with the ancient world. At the same time, I always try to write in a way that a reader would not need to get any of the allusions to enjoy the story.
