Kingdom of the Wicked Book Review

• Gothic-esc tale of revenge with strong themes of witches and devils
• Slow start in the first half
• Good flow and mounting suspense in the plot
• World building needed a lot more development
• I liked the main characters and their growth
• The romance sub-lot wasn’t nearly as exciting as I thought it would be

A gothic-inspired, goosebumps-inducing tale of witches, vengeance and handsome devils that will steal your soul. Kingdom of the Wicked follows the story of Emilia, an aspiring cook for her family’s restaurant in historic Italy (yummmm), after her twin sister is brutally murdered. Emilia, normally quite and content, becomes obsessed with finding her sister’s killer and enacting vengeance. In her mission, she ends up inadvertently teaming up with one of the very Princes of Hell her grandma warned her about. Adding an extra element of danger to her goal is the fact that several other witches like herself have turned up dead, in addition to her sister, thereby putting a target on Emilia’s back now. On her journey, she encounters several Princes of Hell that personify the deadly sins, and sees first hand how right her grandma was for warning her about them.

The pacing of this book felt a little off for me. It took until about half way through for me to feel like things started to pick up. It never felt slow in a drudgery way, but it never felt heart-racing fast either. Plot wise, everything had a good flow in the sense that I always had an idea of where the story was headed. And I always knew the dangers potentially lurking around the corner. With a witch-killer on the loose, every time Emilia left I felt the tension of knowing someone might attack her. But there were a few times things felt too easy for Emilia, whether it was her figuring something out too quickly, or her miraculously escaping danger with little effort (which happened several times throughout the novel). 

World building could have used a little more development in my opinion. Lack of details about her surroundings made it hard to tell we were in a historical time period. Besides the smell and taste of things, I didn’t feel transported. I will say I enjoyed reading about the witches culture and the way they used their magic and potions and what not. 

For characters, I thought Emilia and Wrath were well formed and both had good growth and development throughout. I enjoyed seeing the tragedy of her sister’s death push Emilia to step outside her comfort zone. Emilia is honestly one of the most proactive protagonists I’ve read in a while. She makes decisions and acts on them quickly, and these choices are what move the plot along. And Wrath was a great character, the perfect brooding bad boy every good girl falls in love with. Maniscalco used his interactions with Emilia well to show he had many levels and that he worked hard to conceal most of them.

One of the biggest reasons I took points off was the lackluster love story. The scenes where Emilia and Wrath were together were everything I wanted them to be: dripping in tension, funny, and fueled by undeclared attraction. There just weren’t enough of them. The best way to portray a growing affection between to people is to have them together doing stuff. However half of the time Emilia decided to go off and do things on her own. The biggest reason I’m excited for book two in this series is because I want to see more of Emilia and Wrath together. I didn’t get nearly enough in this book because it sorely lacked in  number of interactions.

Overall, I enjoyed the book, but it wasn’t one of my favorites. The premise was intriguing, but the execution left me slightly board. I do still think it’s a good story, and I might recommend to the right person, but in general I’d say I liked it, but won’t read it again. I am however intrigued enough to read on to book two.