THE CHEF'S SECRET

From the author of FEAST OF SORROW, a captivating and suspenseful historical novel about the real-life chef and cookbook author Bartolomeo Scappi, and the fictional nephew who sets out to discover his late uncle's secrets--and the noblewoman Bartolomeo loved until he died.

When Bartolomeo Scappi, chef to four popes, dies, he leaves his vast estatenumerous previously unknown properties, a large sum of money, and his positionto his nephew and apprentice Giovanni on the condition that he take the Scappi name. He also asks Giovanni to burn his journals, most of which are written in cipher. Instead, Giovanni reads them and learns that he is the product of a passionate love affair between Bartolomeo and a noblewoman his father called "Stella." No one, including Giovanni's adoptive mother Caterina, knows her true identity.

As Giovanni pieces together the sordid details of Scappi's past, he must contend with two rivals who have joined forces--his brother Cesare, who has always suspected that Giovanni was not his true brother, and Scappi's former protégé, Domenico Romoli, who will do anything to get his hands on the late chef's recipes. A new threat emerges when Gionvanni learns that his love interest, Isabetta, is the daughter of the mid-wife who birthed him and that Scappi killed Isabetta's mother to protect his secretand Isabetta's family wants revenge.

So Giovanni and his best friend Valentino, scion of a powerful and wealthy noble family, head off to Venice, where his parents met, in hopes of uncovering his mother's true identity.

Crystal King is a social media marketing and communications veteran, freelance writer, and Pushcart-nominated poet. She has taught classes in writing, creativity, and social media at Harvard Extension School, Boston University, Mass College of Art and Design, UMass Boston, and GrubStreet, one of the leading creative writing centers in the United States. A 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 considers Italy her next great love after her husband, Joe, and their two cats, Nero and Merlin.