Spotlight & Giveaway: In The Garden of Monsters by Crystal King

Today it is my pleasure to Welcome author Crystal King to HJ!

Hi Crystal and welcome to HJ! We’re so excited to chat with you about your new release, In The Garden of Monsters!

 
Ciao! So glad to be here.
 

Please summarize the book for the readers here:

“In the Garden of Monsters” is a wild retelling of the myth of Hades & Persephone, told from the point-of-view of a model named Julia that Salvador Dalí brings to a garden of stone monsters in 1948. The novel is a bit genre-defying in its description: gothic, historical fiction, mythology, and romantasy.
 

Please share your favorite line(s) or quote from this book:

I had great fun imagining Salvador Dalí in the Sacro Bosco. He was over-the-top, always performing, as in this passage:

“This is some spectacle,” I observed. But, then again, everything in Bomarzo had been a spectacle. Even Ignazio and my companions were spectacular, like something out of a movie, except with brilliant color. I stared out at the sky beyond Dalí’s head, the W shape of Cassiopeia’s stars blinking in the darkness.

“All is as it should be,” Dalí responded, launching into a dramatic soliloquy. “This is what other surrealists do not understand! We are on the edge of real and unreal. On the edge of life and death. Of black and white. Of the world and the underworld. We are in a place where few will ever be. This! This is where the heart is! This is the point where the knife is touching the skin! The second before blood meets air!”

“Did you plan all of this?” I asked in disbelief.

Dalí looked at me as though I were daft. “Of course, my little Proserpina, of course.”

Gala shook her head at me, contradicting her husband’s words.

Please share a few Fun facts about this book…

• I began writing this book at a retreat, the first thing I did after the COVID lockdown once I had my vaccination. I was in good company, with authors Kris Waldherr, Heather Webb, Jennifer S. Brown, and Julie Carrick Dalton.
• The first time I visited Bomarzo I had no intention of writing a book set there. I went two more times when writing the novel.
• I always make playlists for my book, and my Spotify playlist for this one is here: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5kCQpfngPdGt7wO855MxEp?si=63e2fa17f510487a
• I didn’t like Salvador Dalí ‘s art very much before writing this book, but since then, I have discovered that a lot of it resonates with me. I’ve even acquired some pieces: a lithograph, two Limoges plates featuring scenes from his cookbook, and a bronze medal struck, also to celebrate his cookbook, Les Dîners de Gala.
• While this book isn’t technically about food, unlike my first two novels, which were about the lives of culinary figures, it probably contains more food scenes than my first two combined.
• Since this is a book about Persephone, many of the dishes mentioned in the book contain pomegranate seeds. I have created several recipes using this delicious fruit, and since I first began writing it in 2021, I think I’ve consumed at least one pomegranate a week. I especially love peanut butter and pomegranate toast, which I discovered through Top Chef host Padma Lakshmi.

What first attracts your Hero to the Heroine and vice versa?

I think the tricky part here is figuring out who the Hero is, and of course, I’m not going to spoil it. But Julia has two men who have divided her attention, the sultry Ignazio, the host at Bomarzo, and the buff, down-home charm of Jack, one of the men that Dalí has hired to haul around his equipment. Both are attracted to Julia and she finds herself torn in her affections.

Did any scene have you blushing, crying or laughing while writing it? And Why?

I have a really wild sex scene in the book that while I’m not sure I would say it made me blush (I mean, I’m the one that wrote it!) I’m guessing it might make some of my readers do so:

Finally, long after midnight, Jack climbed into bed with me and I pushed my body against his as I languished in the sheets, the earthy smell of him filling my senses. His hands caressed me with the barest of movements and, although it would seem impossible to fall asleep in such an amorous moment, I must have been very tired, for I began to dream that Jack was a woman, large and powerful, cradling my body, wrapping herself around me from behind, her breasts against my back, her breath hot in my ear. Her flesh was soft, like the downiest pillows, and I let myself luxuriate in the sensation of her cool skin against mine. Then she kissed the tip of my ear, her tongue traveling across the tight skin, her hands roaming across my body…

Readers should read this book….

because it’s perfect for curling up with during the eerie, autumnal nights of the spooky season. I mean, it has it all: a creepy castle on a hill with a garden full of stone monsters below. There are gods and goddesses, feast after feast of delectable meals, romantic suspense, and the over-the-top personality of Salvador Dalí to twist up the tale even further.

What are you currently working on? What other releases do you have in the works?

I’m currently working on edits for my next novel, which will be out at the end of 2025, a contemporary fantasy about ancient gods stealing happiness from the world. But I’m also noodling on the next book, which has something to do with the world of dreams.
 
 

Thanks for blogging at HJ!

Giveaway: A Print copy of IN THE GARDEN OF MONSTERS + a copy of my previous books, FEAST OF SORROW and THE CHEF’S SECRET. US only.

To enter Giveaway: Please complete the Rafflecopter form and Post a comment to this Q: Why do you think the myth of Hades & Persephone has captivated readers for so many centuries?

 
a Rafflecopter giveaway

 
 

Excerpt from In The Garden of Monsters:

“Try the broccoli,” Dalí instructed me, pointing to the whorls of green on my plate. I lifted the Romanesco to my mouth but purposefully lost a pomegranate seed to the floor. A bird would
find it later, I supposed. I took a bite. The broccoli, to my surprise, wasn’t cold. We were a long way from the castello, and I did not smell or see any fire to warm the food.

Dalí looked unsatisfied. “Did you have the salad? The pomegranate seeds are the ultimate complement to the chicory and bresaola.”

I gave him a sheepish smile. “I’m not partial to salad.”

He pointed at a fritter on my plate. “Then you must have the fritters.”

I couldn’t understand his weird insistence that I eat certain foods, although I noticed they all had pomegranate seeds. Dalí being his freakish, surreal self, I assumed, wanting me to really fill Proserpina’s shoes. Fine. Much as I hated pomegranate seeds, perhaps if I ate a fritter he would leave me alone. I lifted the pastry off the plate and thought I heard the faintest of whispers.

Julia…don’t…

I was tired of my mind playing tricks on me. I took a bite. The crunch and sweetness of a pomegranate aril hit my tongue, and for a moment, I was transported. My senses were overwhelmed by a rush of indescribable love, so profound that it seemed to permeate my very being. I felt as though I was floating, ensconced in the warm embrace of someone deeply familiar yet distant. Passionate kisses, whispered promises—I experienced them all,
vivid as if happening in the present.

I heard a whisper. “Ogni pensiero vola.”

And then, as suddenly as it had come, the sensation was ripped from me, leaving an aching emptiness where that feeling of pure love had been. My world was spinning, my eyes refocusing on the stone room around me. I was struck by the heady aroma of smoke and leather, as if remnants of that ephemeral moment had followed me back.

Ignazio bent down to pick up my fork, which had clattered to the floor in my daze. “All thoughts fly,” he said, smiling at me. “Don’t worry, I’ll get you a clean one.”

“I’m not hungry anymore,” I replied, standing up. I had to get out of the mouth of that monster. Leaving with as much decorum as I could muster, I rushed down the path, away from
the orco.

I had never been faint of heart, having dizzy spells. And the whispers… What did they mean? What was wrong with me? One second dizzy, but then suddenly not. And I was left haunted by the intense love and passion that had been so cruelly snatched away.

I hurried past the elephant with the castle on its back and the dragon fighting off the lions and found myself at the foot of a giant statue of a seated woman, her mossy legs before her, a wide
bowl upon her head, from which a wild abundance of autumn flowers grew—cyclamen, autumn iris, chrysanthemums, winter honeysuckle. It was an outlandish, impossible bouquet. Who had planted such a chaotic arrangement in that basin? Surely it didn’t grow that way on its own. The statue looked in the direction of the orco’s mouth, where I could see my companions
talking as though nothing had happened.

As I neared the statue, I began to feel nauseous, my stomach roiling with each step. I stopped, clutching at my belly, wondering if I might lose what little lunch I had managed to eat. I looked up at the statue. Her face was serene, beautiful, her hair tumbling down her back. A little cherub seemed to be whispering something in her ear.

Ceres.

It came to me in that moment, her name. How, I couldn’t tell you. I only knew the woman was familiar, as though I had always known her. The comfort of her arms, the way her hips so generously curved, the swell of her breasts, her hands caressing me, the feel of her lips against mine. Before me was an image in mossy peperino, but there was more to this statue, just as I instinctively knew there was more to the myth of Ceres, of Pluto, of Proserpina. It wasn’t the same as the tale written in the pages of the books on my shelves, the story passed through centuries of mortal telling. No, the truth was different, twisted up, and it had little to do with motherhood and everything to do with passion, betrayal, and deceit.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
 
 

Book Info:

A woman with no past. A man who seems to know her. And a monstrous garden that could be the border between their worlds…

Italy, 1948

Julia Lombardi is a mystery even to herself. The beautiful model can’t remember where she’s from, where she’s been or how she came to live in Rome. When she receives an offer to accompany celebrated eccentric artist Salvador Dalí to the Sacro Bosco—Italy’s Garden of Monsters—as his muse, she’s strangely compelled to accept. It could be a chance to unlock the truth about her past…

Shrouded in shadow, the garden full of giant statues that sometimes seem alive is far from welcoming. Still, from the moment of their arrival at the palazzo, Julia is inexplicably drawn to their darkly enigmatic host, Ignazio. He’s alluring yet terrifying—and he seems to know her.

Posing for Dalí as the goddess Persephone, Julia finds the work to be perplexing, particularly as Dalí descends deeper into his fanaticism. To him, she is Persephone, and he insists she must eat pomegranate seeds to rejoin her king.

Between Dalí’s fevered persistence, Ignazio’s uncanny familiarity and the agonizing whispered warnings that echo through the garden, Julia is soon on the verge of unraveling. And she begins to wonder if she’s truly the mythical queen of the Underworld…
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Meet the Author:

Crystal King is the author of In The Garden of Monsters, The Chef’s Secret, and Feast of Sorrow, which was long-listed at the Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize and designated as a MassBook Awards Must Read. A social media and AI professor by trade, her writing is fueled by a love of history and a passion for the food, language, and culture of Italy. Crystal has taught writing, creativity, and social media at Harvard Extension School, Boston University, and GrubStreet. A Pushcart Prize-nominated poet and former co-editor of Plum Ruby Review, she holds an MA in critical and creative thinking from UMass Boston. You can find her at crystalking.com.
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