Through meticulous research and bold imagination, 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 life. A hard fate awaits Sparrow, one that involves suffering, murder, mayhem, and the scattering of the little community that has been his whole world. When not being told stories by his beloved ‘mother’ Euterpe, he runs errands for her lover the cook, while trying to avoid the blows of their brutal overseer or the machinations of the chief wolf, Melpomene. His world is a kitchen, the herb-scented garden, then the loud and dangerous tavern, and finally the mysterious upstairs where the ‘wolves’ – prostitutes of every ethnic background from the far reaches of the empire – do their mysterious business. He is Sparrow, who sings without reason and can fly from trouble. Raised in a brothel on the Spanish coast in the waning years of the Roman Empire, a boy of no known origin creates his own identity. Sparrow tells the story of Jacob, son of no one, last survivor of an abandoned British Roman town. ‘A novel of ancient times for our times.’ – Jim Crace ‘Utterly engrossing, vivid and honest’ – Emma Donoghue
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