I so enjoyed Crystal King's previous historical fiction offering set in Italy's past—Ancient Roman and Italian Renaissance. This latest novel, an inventive Gothic work, reaches into the mid-20th Century yet clearly echoes people and places of both earlier periods. And these …more reflections are vividly and frighteningly expressed through warning voices, supernatural events, and mysterious occurrences that the main character, 24-year old artist Julia Lombardi, encounters in the eerie Sacro Bosco, the Sacred Grove. This wild, overgrown, sculpture-strewn garden of the book's title is no Garden of Eden tempting Eve with its forbidden fruit. In this scary place detested pomegranate seeds, instead, propel Julia to her inevitable fate.

As the story unfolds the relationship to Roman myths and Renaissance pasts is revealed. A rich cast of characters, including Julia's handsome, possessive host and the surrealist artist Dalí and his contentious wife, participate in out-of-this-worldly gatherings and dangerous explorations that ultimately lead to the story's immortal conclusion.
Not quite the well-developed reimagining of powerful mythical women of recent literature but a clever modernization of ancient Roman/Greek mythology that see Proserpina/Persephone once again reclaimed by her Underworld king. (less)