Kingdom of The Wicked by Kerri Maniscalco
Published: October 27, 2020
Two sisters.
One brutal murder.
A quest for vengeance that will unleash Hell itself…
And an intoxicating romance.
Emilia and her twin sister Vittoria are streghe – witches who live secretly among humans, avoiding notice and persecution. One night, Vittoria misses dinner service at the family’s renowned Sicilian restaurant. Emilia soon finds the body of her beloved twin…desecrated beyond belief. Devastated, Emilia sets out to find her sister’s killer and to seek vengeance at any cost-even if it means using dark magic that’s been long forbidden.
Then Emilia meets Wrath, one of the Wicked-princes of Hell she has been warned against in tales since she was a child. Wrath claims to be on Emilia’s side, tasked by his master with solving the series of women’s murders on the island. But when it comes to the Wicked, nothing is as it seems…
So this was a tough read for me, I was excited to dive back into fantasy, this seemed like such a great book to do that with. But yeesh, I was disappointed! The vibe, the descriptions, the era, it all worked so well together. I loved the spooky feeling just from the way it was all written but it all ended up really just an okay story or this girl galivanting around with the prince of hell, trying to figure out who murdered her sister.
This book felt really repetitive to me, and I feel like the biggest disappointment was getting to meet the various princes of hell and not getting really into it. Like I wanted a deep dive into these princes, their powers etc. It felt like such a missed opportunity. This book fell flat for me, I felt like Wrath was just really drab, he didn’t live up to his name which is really bothersome, I feel like if he lived up to his namesake, maybe the romance would’ve been better.
I also felt like the plot seemed really…plain. Like a lot of what would be considered twists and turns were just openly revealed a little too soon. It’s almost as if Maniscalco wanted to have this be a honking like 700 page book, but decided or was told to cut stuff out and make it into a trilogy so all the good juicy content had to be cut.
I feel like this had the potential to be a really awesome full adult fantasy. But it is what it is, apparently the 2nd book is supposed to be better so I might try it out to see how it goes, but unfortunately this really awesome premise, fell short for me.
2/5 Stars
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