Kingdom of the Wicked by Kerri Maniscalco – Review

Published: October 27, 2020

Publisher: JIMMY Patterson

Series: Kingdom of the Wicked #1

Genre: Fantasy, Young Adult

Pages: 372 (Hardcover)

My Rating: 3.5/5.0

Synopsis:
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…

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Much to my own surprise I found myself picking up Kingdom of the Wicked. I was so irritated by the Stalking Jack the Ripper series that I swore I wouldn’t pick up another of this author’s books but here we are. I was tempted by Bookstagram – the endless reels featuring this book swayed me in the end. Especially since I’ve been going through fantasy romances like wildfire lately! 

This story follows Amelia, a girl who comes from a long line of witches. When they were young, she and her twin sister were gifted with matching magical necklaces and were warned never to touch them together, lest terrible things happen, but of course they did just that. Something strange happened that night and according to the family curse/legend, they opened the gates of hell. Or were they already open? 

Jumping forward to the present, Vittoria is out and about with a new beau or so Amelia thinks but when Vittoria doesn’t show up for dinner service at their family restaurant she goes to look for her sister. Vittoria was brutally murdered, with her heart ripped from her chest just like the other witches in the city who have been killed. Amelia’s search for her sister’s killer leads her to Wrath, one of the most powerful princes of hell and one that she was specifically warned away from by her family. But he’s also investigating the murders and might make a good ally.

You can see where this is going, right? Obviously he’s tremendously good looking but in a bad boy way and though Amelia was warned away from his kind she just simply can’t resist. It’s enemies to lovers all the way to hell and back. The whole mystery aspect, plus the slow introduction to Wrath’s terrible brothers kept me quite hooked. Admittedly, Amelia was the worst combination of admirably determined yet frustratingly stubborn and Wrath is bad at honest communication so if you nixed those traits the book would have been much shorter. 

While the book was fairly predictable I found I didn’t mind much because I enjoyed Amelia and Wrath butting heads and also the clear attraction between the two. And then (SPOILER), Amelia agrees to become the devil’s bride so that she might further her investigation by becoming the Princess of Hell. This book is the very definition of “things are not what they appear” and there’s so much misdirection! While it is character focused, the world building was actually pretty solid and there were so many delightful dishes described because Amelia is quite passionate about food. The lore is ripe for further development and I can safely say it was enhanced upon in the next book but perhaps not enough for me. I was intrigued/invested enough to pick up Kingdom of the Cursed right away, but it began to suffer from the same issues that made me dislike the Stalking Jack the Ripper series less and less.