Kingdom of the Wicked (Kingdom of the Wicked, # 1)
By: Kerri Maniscalco
Publication: October 27, 2020 by Jimmy Patterson Books
372 pages
Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy, Witches
Source: Borrowed from the e-library
( Goodreads | Amazon )
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Goodreads description--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...
I'm going to start right off and say that I didn't like this book. I don't intend to read more of the series at this point. And I'm going to try to tell you why, but my thoughts are a bit jumbled.
Emelia and Vittoria are twins. They're witches. Supposedly good/light witches. To be honest, I haven't read many (any?) witch books that really worked for me. But I thought I would give it a try. Their grandmother has always told them stories about the princes of Hell in an attempt to warn them of their trickery and danger. But Emelia and Vittoria always thought their Nonna was telling them fairytales, fables, etc. Stories that wouldn't ever affect their lives. Until one day Vittoria is murdered. Emelia then seeks some dark methods in an attempt to discover who murdered her sister. She does a summoning spell for a demon that she found in Vittoria's hiding spot in their shared bedroom. Little did she know, she actually ended up binding the Prince of Wrath to her. They end up in an uneasy alliance as they both search for the murderer with different end goals.
As I said, I've never read a witch book that I actually ended up liking. The spells. The potions. The lore. All of it ends up bothering me. And there was a part of me that was just chilled when I started reading this book. I don't usually have problems with books that I can assign as completely fantasy, but when fantasy books use God or try to pull from real life religions I start to feel off about them. I don't even enjoy reading much Greek or Roman mythology based books. By the end of the book, I just felt like the author was trying to twist everything that might be expected to be good as bad and what might be expected to be bad is leading the reader and Emelia toward. It's hard to explain.
Perhaps my biggest frustration was Emelia as a character. She was so wishy washy. I pictured her running everywhere. Like a character on a video game. Like Link or Mario. They don't meander. When you play those characters, you make them run so you can get where you're going faster, but Emelia just seemed to be running everywhere. And she'd randomly change course in physical direction as well as emotional direction. It was jarring. And it felt like poor writing in my opinion. She'd be passionately pursuing one end goal and then randomly change course.
Also, Emelia was pretty blind. I like when authors can lead me to think I've figured out some secret plot point that I might actually be right about but also totally blindside me with something I didn't see coming. (I'm thinking about the Red Rising series by Pierce Brown.) But this didn't feel like that at all. The big plot twists weren't a surprise. I think one of them or both were supposed to be. But I just ended up feeling like the character was a dolt for not figuring out at least one of them, but both of the main twists were pretty obvious. It's hard to root for a character that isn't very smart.
The relationship building between Wrath and Emelia was also a little bit painful to watch considering where it was obvious the author wanted to go with this direction. I don't plan to read the other two books in this series, but I feel like I can already tell you point by point what I expect to happen with these two characters. Which is one of the main reasons why I won't be continuing the series. Sure, he had some moments where he wasn't a total DB, but that doesn't mean the two built any kind of true relationship or connection that was worth any weight.
And then another complaint I had is that Wrath has so much knowledge that Emelia doesn't have. She knows basically nothing. And so she spent the entire book asking questions and not getting any real answers or anything. He flat didn't even respond to many of her questions. I know that the pacing of revealing information to a character can be important for the story to progress in a specific manner, but Emelia spent the entire book not really knowing anything yet continually making assumptions and judgement calls and then she'd make some ridiculous stance on something knowing zero information. Of course, it's easy to play a character like that.
Language was minimal. I think the s-word was used twice and the d-word as well. That being said, there was also on-page kissing, but that was about it. No on-page spice or sexual content.
I don't have any quotes I care enough to share with you.
I kept read Kingdom of the Wicked hoping that it would redeem itself. And then I'd come far enough to want to see it through. I did consider DNFing it in the beginning, but after I moved past that point, I didn't really think about it again until maybe the 80% mark when I realized that things probably weren't going to turn around, but I stuck with it and finished it out. Kingdom of the Wicked gets 2.5 Stars. Have you read Kingdom of the Wicked? What did you think? Let me know!
This review is part of my All Things Halloween event--a month of fantasy, paranormal, supernatural, mystery/thriller, etc reviews and books.
