Review: In the Garden of Monsters by Crystal King

Thanks to Harlequin Trade Publishing for my advanced reading copy.

Title: In the Garden of Monsters
Author: Crystal King
Publication: September 24, 2024 by MIRA
Genre: Historical Fantasy
Find it on: Amazon | Apple Books | Barnes & Noble | Blackwell’s | Google Play | Kobo
Rating: 3/5★

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…

In the Garden of Monsters had two of my very favorite things: Greek/Roman mythology and art. It’s a reimagining of the Persephone and Hades myth (or Proserpina and Pluto) but also involves Salvador Dalí, which is something I would never have seen coming before reading this story. So how could I resist reading it? And as per usual with a Crystal King book there were lots of eloquent descriptions of the delicious food.

The story is set in 1948 in Italy and features Julia Lombardi who is a painter that supports herself by modeling. What nobody knows about her is that she has amnesia and no idea where she came from or how she came to live in Rome. When she receives an offer from no one other than Salvador Dalí, one of the biggest artists of the time, to model for him as the goddess Proserpina (also known as Persephone) she knows it’s too good to turn down. And off they go to The Sacro Bosco in Bomarzo. Once there she meets their host, Ignazio and is strangely captivated by him. Who is he and why does his touch so bewitching to her?

Not gonna lie, this book was straight up weird. And not necessarily in a bad way as I did enjoy the story and the weirdness for sure fit in with it all. If I would describe it all I would call it a surrealist painting in the shape of a fictional story. The story was beautiful written, especially the descriptions of the bountiful food, which the author has a passion for. I also enjoyed learning about The Sacro Bosco aka the Garden of Bomarzo, which is a real place that I would love to visit someday.

Now the things I enjoyed less were the characters themselves and some choices that the author made towards the actual mythology. Firstly, the characters. I didn’t actually like any of them. Salvador Dalí and his wife Gala, especially were the actual worst. I like Dalí’s paintings but I don’t know very much about his or Gala’s life yet I feel like this story made them out to be worse than was necessary. I could be wrong, of course but the interactions between them and the other characters were overly dramatic. At first this was entertaining but started getting boring fairly quick. Also, the phrase Dalinian was used way too much in my opinion.

Now about Julia and Ignazio… I was never certain what to think about them. I had my suspicions about who Ignazio really was, which wasn’t hard to figure out. Often times Julia was scared of him or scared to be alone with him so I thought he was going to be the villain of the story. I never found anything about them to be romantic. Honestly, it was all a bit messy. The real villain of the story ended up being someone I didn’t expect or was in the story very much and it definitely changed the whole Hades-Persephone/Pluto-Proserpina myth. And I didn’t like that at all. Which of course is a personaly thing and others might enjoy this twist.

In the Garden of Monsters was a different kind of mythology retelling. It didn’t turn out quite as I expected or wanted and it wasn’t my all time favorite story but it was a very quick read and I did enjoy the descriptions of food and landscape as well as the historical setting.

About 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 for the Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize and was a Must Read for the MassBook Awards. She is an author, culinary enthusiast, and marketing expert. Her writing is fueled by a love of history and a passion for the food, language, and culture of Italy. She has taught classes in writing, creativity, and social media at several universities including Harvard Extension School and Boston University, as well as at GrubStreet, one of the leading creative writing centers in the US. A Pushcart Prize–nominated poet and former co-editor of the online literary arts journal Plum Ruby Review, Crystal received her MA in critical and creative thinking from UMass Boston, where she developed a series of exercises and writing prompts to help fiction writers in medias res. She resides in Boston.

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