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Crystal King

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Crystal King

Goodreads Author


Born
in The United States
Website

Twitter

Genre

Influences

Member Since
May 2007

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Crystal King is the bestselling author of THE CHEF'S SECRET, FEAST OF SORROW and the upcoming novel IN THE GARDEN OF MONSTERS (Sep 2024). A culinary enthusiast and social media professional, 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 Harvard Extension School, Boston University, Mass College of Art, UMass Boston and GrubStreet, one of the leading creative writing centers in the US. A Pushcart-nominated poet and former co-editor of the online literary arts journal Plum Ruby Review, Crystal received her M.A. in Critical and Creative Thinking from UMass Boston, where she developed a series of exercises and writing prompts ...more

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Crystal King I have a self-built-in mechanism for escaping reality. Also, there is the sense of agency that the characters sometimes have. There is nothing more wo…moreI have a self-built-in mechanism for escaping reality. Also, there is the sense of agency that the characters sometimes have. There is nothing more wondrous (and sometimes alarming) than the feeling of pulling away from the page and being shocked that your characters decided to do what they did. I love that feeling.(less)
Crystal King My second novel is about a Renaissance chef, Bartolomeo Scappi. He was a famous Italian cook who served several Popes during the height of the Renaiss…moreMy second novel is about a Renaissance chef, Bartolomeo Scappi. He was a famous Italian cook who served several Popes during the height of the Renaissance, approximately 1500-1577. He was one of the most celebrated chefs in all of Italy and he wrote one of the most famous cookbooks of the 16th century, The Opera of Bartolomeo Scappi. From him we have some of the earliest pasta recipes, the first known drawing of a fork, and a full description, for the first time, of how the Papal Conclave is served food when sequestered. He also shares some of the first recipes with ingredients from the new world, including turkey! The novel has two love stories including one incredible hidden affair, a mystery, several dramatic deaths and sooooo much food. (less)
Average rating: 3.77 · 4,377 ratings · 996 reviews · 6 distinct works • Similar authors
Feast of Sorrow

4.08 avg rating — 1,744 ratings — published 2017 — 14 editions
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In the Garden of Monsters

3.46 avg rating — 1,093 ratings — published 2024 — 7 editions
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The Chef's Secret

3.79 avg rating — 942 ratings — published 2019 — 10 editions
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The Happiness Collector

3.41 avg rating — 598 ratings — published 2025 — 3 editions
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The Happiness Collector: A ...

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In the Garden of Monsters: ...

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Crystal's Curated Curiosities

Pier Luigi Pizzi, I voli dell'Ariosto. L'Orlando furioso e le arti (The Flights of Ariosto: Orlando Furioso and the Arts), Villa d’Este, Tivoli. photo c.2018 Crystal King

Here in the States, we’re hurtling toward Thanksgiving. How did the year pass by so fast? It’s past peak leaf season in Boston. The black larch beyond my window is no longer brilliant yellow; it's a greenish-brown swirl of

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Published on November 12, 2026 04:01
The Golden Age of...
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Crystal’s Recent Updates

The Rise and Fall of the Artificial State by Jill Lepore
The New Menopause by Mary Claire Haver
Crystal King rated a book it was amazing
Take Your Back Back by Christine Goertz
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I was diagnosed with lower back arthritis earlier this year, so this book immediately caught my attention. I found it to be well-researched, and there were a lot of really good strategies, many of which my physical therapist has also recommended. If ...more
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On the Street of the Hidden Shops by Elizabeth Rodini
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I read this on a flight to Rome, which was absolutely perfect. I've walked the Via delle Botteghe Oscure many times on my trips to Rome, and long ago had visited the Crypta Balbi (but it was an Italian tour, and my Italian at the time was terrible). ...more
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Blacktail by Scott  Hawkins
Blacktail
by Scott Hawkins (Goodreads Author)
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The Library at Mount Char is one of my favorite novels, so I was very curious to see what Scott Hawkins would write next. Blacktail is utterly different, and I loved how fully he commits to telling this story through animals’ eyes, right down to thei ...more
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Mystery Play by Elizabeth Kostova
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Old books, theater history, and something sinister hiding in the past: Mystery Play had plenty to tempt me, and I loved it. Elizabeth Kostova is so good at making the smallest discovery feel unsettling. Just as she did in The Historian, Kostova bring ...more
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Victorious by V.E. Schwab
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I adore everything that V.E. Schwab writes, and her latest is no exception. I have a soft spot for terrible people in fiction, and Schwab makes it very easy to get attached to this particular bunch. Victorious is a fantastic finish to the Villains tr ...more
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The Ended World by Libbie Grant
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A medieval saint, a former nun, and an AI programmer make for quite a premise, and I loved where Libbie Grant took it. As someone who spends a lot of time thinking about AI and also writing about gods, I was immediately drawn to The Ended World. Gran ...more
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The Eye of the Bedlam Bride by Matt Dinniman
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The Happiness Collector by Crystal King
"4 STARS

How this book ended up on my TBR: I honestly don't know. It doesn't appear that I read about the book through BookBub, and I would expect to remember some summary of the book if I'd heard about it on bookish insta, but I can't conceive of any " Read more of this review »
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Quotes by Crystal King  (?)
Quotes are added by the Goodreads community and are not verified by Goodreads. (Learn more)

“While Apicius is full of ancient delicacies such as roasted peacock, boiled sow vulva, testicles, and other foods we would not commonly eat today, there are many others that are still popular, including tapenade, absinthe, flatbreads, and meatballs. There is even a recipe for Roman milk and egg bread that is identical to what we call French toast. And, contrary to popular belief, foie gras was not originally a French delicacy. The dish dates back twenty-five hundred years, and Pliny credits Apicius with developing a version using pigs instead of geese by feeding hogs dried figs and giving them an overdose of mulsum (honey wine) before slaughtering them.”
― Crystal King, Feast of Sorrow

“He let his fingers tease her until she uttered soft cries. Stella spread her legs further and wider as his hand explored, touched, and pleasured every part of her womanhood.
She untied her outer bodice and lifted her breasts so they spilled from her corset. Her hands rubbed and played with her nipples. She knew what excited Bartolomeo. He continued to pleasure her while she touched herself, and he stroked his erection until he was near to bursting. Finally, he pulled her forward and slid into her, and her exclamation was louder than either of them expected. She clamped a hand over her mouth, wide-eyed.
He did not release her. Instead, he slowed his motion, and once he felt sure no one could have heard them, he began to rock against her, deeper and harder. The bed began to creak, but he was lost in the depths of his desire.
When she reached her climax, her cries more urgent and sustained, he lost control and spilled into her, his hips bucking a few more times. His legs threatened to give way with pleasure and exhaustion.”
― Crystal King, The Chef's Secret

“Today I saw the most beautiful girl in the world...

She is the most beautiful girl in the world, Bartolomeo Scappi thought. Never have I seen a woman so perfect, so angelic, so impossible for me to attain.
"Bella," he breathed when air filled his lungs once again.
Even Ippolito d'Este's presence at the dining table could not mar his giddiness. The girl was so beautiful she glowed like a painting of the Madonna, making everyone around her seem colorless in comparison. She was clearly a principessa of a grand house, sitting between Ippolito's father, the Duke of Ferrara, on one side, and a woman most likely to be her mother on the right.
Bartolomeo sought to memorize every feature of this goddess with golden hair that shone with glints of red in the last rays of the day's sunlight. Her eyes were dark chestnut, rich and deep, while her lips were pink, like the inside of a seashell. Her hair was braided, but much of it flowed loose over shoulders, teasing her pale skin. She wore a dress of red, with sleeves billowing white. Rubies and pearls spilled across her delicate collarbone toward her beautiful breasts. Scappi painted her picture in his mind and stored it deep within the frame of his heart.
That evening, while staring at the sky, his thoughts lost in the memory of the signorina, a shooting star passed across his vision. "Stella," he said under his breath. I will call her Stella. My shining star.”
― Crystal King, The Chef's Secret

Topics Mentioning This Author

“It does not matter how slowly you go so long as you do not stop.”
― Andy Warhol

“I don't know much about being a millionaire, but I'll bet I'd be darling at it.”
― Dorothy Parker

“We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.”
― Oscar Wilde, Lady Windermere's Fan

“A word after a word after a word is power.”
― Margaret Atwood

“Our lips just trespassed on those inner labyrinths hidden deep within our ears, filled them with the private music of wicked words, hers in many languages, mine in the off color of my own tongue, until as our tones shifted, and our consonants spun and squealed, rattled faster, hesitated, raced harder, syllables soon melting with groans, or moans finding purchase in new words, or old words, or made-up words, until we gathered up our heat and refused to release it, enjoying too much the dark language we had suddenly stumbled upon, craved to, carved to, not a communication really but a channeling of our rumored desires, hers for all I know gone to Black Forests and wolves, mine banging back to a familiar form, that great revenant mystery I still could only hear the shape of, which in spite of our separate lusts and individual cries still continued to drive us deeper into stranger tones, our mutual desire to keep gripping the burn fueled by sound, hers screeching, mine – I didn’t hear mine – only hears, probably counter-pointing mine, a high-pitched cry, then a whisper dropping unexpectedly to practically a bark, a grunt, whatever, no sense any more, and suddenly no more curves either, just the straight away, some line crossed, where every fractured sound already spoken finally compacts into one long agonizing word, easily exceeding a hundred letters, even thunder, anticipating the inevitable letting go, when the heat is ultimately too much to bear, threatening to burn, scar, tear it all apart, yet tempting enough to hold onto for even one second more, to extend it all, if we can, as if by getting that much closer to the heat, that much more enveloped, would prove … - which when we did clutch, hold, postpone, did in fact prove too much after all, seconds too much, and impossible to refuse, so blowing all of everything apart, shivers and shakes and deep in her throat a thousand letters crashing in a long unmodulated fall, resonating deep within my cochlea and down the cochlear nerve, a last fit of fury describing in lasting detail the shape of things already come.
Too bad dark languages rarely survive.”
― Mark Z. Danielewski, House of Leaves

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To find each others' Goodreads accounts, track books we're reading, and participate in readalongs. ...more
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Carol Cork *Young at Heart Oldie* Thank you for the friend invite and for following my reviews, Crystal.


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