Kingdom of the Wicked by Kerri Maniscalco was the talk of 2020. When I first saw the special edition cover by Fairyloot, the one with the gorgeous floral stenciled edges, I’d never seen anything like it and instantly fell in love at first sight. Then, I read the synopsis for the book and fell even deeper into love: an enemies-to-lovers romance with the Prince of Hell was everything I was looking for and needed in my life.
That’s why it hurts so much to give this book just 2.5 stars. I own every special edition in existence of this book from multiple book box companies. I already own the 2nd book from these companies, and I have even pre-ordered the upcoming 3rd book from one of these companies.
Because I 100% expected to love this book.
Sadly I did not.
Hate is probably too strong of a word though. I apologize for the click-baity title, but “Why I Felt Disappointed, Let Down, and Just Kinda Indifferent About the Book That Everyone Else Loves” just doesn’t have quite the same ring to it. And there wasn’t enough space to write it.
So here we are.
Kerri Maniscalco Kingdom of the Wicked Book Review
If you’ve somehow been living under a rock and haven’t heard of Kingdom of the Wicked yet, the book tells the story of two twin sister witches who are secretly living among humans. Until one sister dies and the other finds her mangled corpse. Set on revenge, the surviving sister, Emilia, vows to find her twin’s killer and ends up meeting Wrath, one of the wickedest princes of Hell that she’s been warned since childhood to stay away from.
This is the perfect setup for a spicy enemies-to-lovers fantasy book, but the problem, for me, was that Wrath just didn’t feel 3-dimensional at all. His character didn’t feel developed, and he just came across to me as having not much personality in the slightest.
His dialogue didn’t give me butterflies, and even the sexy scenes didn’t make me feel anything. I was just so indifferent to it all. I felt no chemistry between the characters, and oftentimes I even felt bored.
I won’t say that the plot was slow, but it felt like not much really happened throughout the book. The entire plot was just find a dead body, vomit on the ground, run from some demons, lather, rinse, repeat.
There also wasn’t very much world building (other than descriptions of meals and cooking food.) The author put a lot of detail into describing the foods that were being prepared and eaten, and I wish she’d applied that same level of detail to the rest of the world/environment and to fleshing out the characters’ personalities (particularly Wrath’s).
And to top it all off—I saw every big reveal and surprise ending coming from a mile away. I guessed from the very beginning of the book who the bad guy was going to be, and I so desperately hoped that I would be wrong (because it’s no fun when you’re able to guess all the big moments instead being able to be surprised. I’d rather be surprised).
So unfortunately this book fell flat for me.
Since I already own the 2nd book, I’ll continue to read this series in hope of it getting better.
The location change for book 2 sounds like it could have potential for finally getting some more-detailed world building.
And the relationship dynamics between the main characters have adjusted (due to end chapter events) in a way that will hopefully give them more tension so that this will feel more like the type of enemies-to-lovers stories that I like to read.
I think the first book was trying to be enemies-to-lovers, but I disliked how the characters felt attraction towards one another so quickly. And I never really believed their hatred for each other. Yes, they’re enemies, and yes they say they hate each other, but it never felt believable to me. They were way too in to each other and from way too early in the story. That’s probably part of why I felt disinterested and even bored at times. Hopefully the 2nd book will have more sexual tension. I guess we’ll see.
Sorry to all of you who love this book!
And if you haven’t read it yet, please do and form your own opinion about the book! It wasn’t for me, but it just might be for YOU!
Kingdom of the Wicked Book Review Originally Written June 28, 2022
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