Raised in a brothel at the edge of a dying empire, a boy of no known origin creates his own identity.

He is Sparrow, who sings without reason and can fly from trouble. His world is a kitchen, a herb-scented garden, a loud and dangerous tavern, and the mysterious upstairs where the ‘wolves’ – prostitutes and slaves from every corner of the empire – conduct their business. 

When not being told stories by his beloved ‘mother’ Euterpe, he runs errands for her lover the cook, dodging the blows of their brutal overseer or the machinations of the chief wolf, Melpomene.

A hard fate awaits Sparrow, one that involves suffering, murder, mayhem, and the scattering of the women who have been his whole world.

Through meticulous research and bold imagination, James Hynes brings the entirety of the Roman city of Carthago Nova – its markets, temples, taverns of the lowly and mansions of the rich – to vivid, brutal life.

You will walk through lost places, and understand how a slave class made an infamous empire function.

This story belongs to one of the most powerfully affecting and memorable characters of recent fiction.

This is Sparrow.

Trigger warning: sexual abuse