Book Reviews/ October 22, 2022August 16, 2023

Kingdom of The Wicked by Kerri Maniscalco Book Review

Blurb

A James Patterson Presents Novel From the #1 New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of the Stalking Jack the Ripper series comes a new blockbuster series…

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…

Triggers

Here is the sensitive content I observed while reading:

Blood
Child Death
Confinement
Death
Emotional Abuse
Gaslighting
Gore
Grief
Hate Crime
Injury
Kidnapping
Mental illness
Misogyny
Physical Abuse
Religious bigotry
Sexual Content
Stalking
Torture
Violence
Vomit

Ratings

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There are possible **SPOILERS** beyond this point!

Overall Rating

3.5/5 ⭐️⭐️⭐️💫

This book was a little all over the place. I feel like it wasn’t an unpleasant read but I didn’t totally enjoy the journey. The characters were unbelievable at times and I still don’t really know what’s going on. I have no problem with cliffhangers or anything and I normally like a book that makes me crave more answers! I didn’t feel connected to any of the characters that much. Emilia had her moments and Wrath was the only decent character in the book. He was meant to be her Enemy but he never was an enemy to her. I like that quality for a MMC in general, but the Prince of Wrath was very polite and respectful. I don’t like that quality for this demon prince story.

This is not a bad book. There is definitely potential for this book to improve and change my mind. I’m always one to give a series a chance. I’ve been proven wrong before!

Main Characters

Female Main Character

Wow Emilia was so naïve! It was frustrating in the extreme when she would act so arrogantly when she was bested almost everytime! It was also why I liked her. She’s stubborn! She believed in herself and felt passionately. However, from the beginning of the book, I felt like Emilia was the “dark witch” of the twins. She’s conniving, petty, bigoted and she’s often acting rather selfishly. She’s always pointing fingers with no evidence and acknowledges that she’s doing it. Plus, she never seems to be hurt or experience any real direct consequences for her reckless behavior. It’s impressive but also kinda strange that she can seemingly do whatever she wants but is terrified? Based on this track record, why wouldn’t she feel arrogant facing opposition?

I was very conflicted with my opinion of Emilia. I love a “bad woman” but I don’t love how she treated people who helped her and I definitely didn’t like how she treated Wrath. I couldn’t even feel comforted by the rationalizations she’d give herself in her narrative. I understand that people make mistakes and that no one is perfect, but she would make mistakes and keep chugging forward to make the exact same mistakes over and over again. There was growth over the course of this book but not til the end. She is young and sheltered so I hope (🤞🏽) she will find some decency through the next book. I don’t think she’s all bad but she is pretty self serving and we saw through Prince Envy’s encounter that she does crave power. Will she be redeemable in the second book? Maybe!

Male Main Character

Wrath was dressed really nicely. He was also very restrained for someone called Wrath… It was disconcerting because I did expect him to show some “Sinful Side” but it never really came. Emilia was leaps and bounds more sinful in this book than he ever was. This really made the “villains” of this story really unbelievable, in my opinion.

I would have appreciated there being some sort of point made about Wrath being purposely nice to Emilia because he cares for her instead of everyone saying Wrath is worse than all the Princes. The other Princes we saw were formidable and I could see why someone would be scared of them. Wrath, even when he was intimidating people, was still very chill. We never really saw his power and we don’t really learn much about him. The little we did see, he was maybe a little wry but otherwise patient and caring. It could be purposeful and we find out that he really was