Book Review: Kingdom of the Wicked
Overall rating: 4/5 ⭐️
Plot: 4/5 ⭐️
Pacing: 4/5 ⭐️
Character Development: 3/5 ⭐️
Kingdom of the Wicked is the first in Maniscalco’s (author of the Stalking Jack the Ripper series) newest series about a teenage witch in hiding, a murder mystery, demons, and the ultimate alliance between two enemies.
The story begins with Emilia, twin to Vittoria, who wants nothing more than to one day take over her family’s legacy of a restaurant. Each day, she pours her heart, soul, and maybe a bit of magic into new recipes, all in the hopes of being recognized by her grandmother as the best chef in the family — or all of Italy… whichever brought the most prestige to her food.
Very soon into the story, Emilia learns that there is a hunter with a vendetta against witches. This vile person has been catching young witches for sport, and stealing their still-beating hearts from their chests. It was a most gruesome deed — one that sent these young witches straight to hell, where they would be forced to spend an eternity being tortured by their mortal enemies: the demons.
After Vittoria fell victim to this inhuman hunter, Emilia fell into a fit of rage. She swore to avenge her sister, kill the murderer, and bring peace back to magic users.
Her family had a different idea on what should be done. Nona thought it best to mourn the loss of Vittoria, but keep a low profile so as not to draw any attention to them from the church or other mortals. Witchcraft was still very frowned upon in their hometown.
This only enraged Emilia further. (And rightfully so). She felt helpless. Why had this happened to Vittoria? She was good — full of life. How was she supposed to carry on without her other half? She could never fill Vittoria’s role in the family, and she couldn’t imagine living her life without her twin trying to push her into uncomfortable but rewarding situations.
Emilia needed to find answers. Who had Vittoria been with the night she died? Emilia only had a dagger that belonged to whoever was there the night her sister died. Would that be enough to solve the case?
With too much hope in her heart, Emilia set out to strike a bargain with a demon — something a witch knew better than to do. But, desperate times called for desperate measures. She needed to enlist the help of a supernatural being if she wanted to solve her sister’s cold case.
Overall thoughts:
While the story might seem daunting at first, Maniscalco jumps straight into the action, leaving the reader too enthralled with the mystery to feel left out of such an immersive world.
Watching Emilia struggle to use her magic and spells was a somewhat refreshing take on a hidden powerful witch story. It all made sense given the fact that Emilia and her sister were often prohibited from using any form of magic at all in the hopes of protecting them from human kind. Personally, I’m all too used to the exhausting trope of: magical person who did not know of their power easily drawing from said power, and taking down the story’s villain with no training or practice. Emilia failed. She had consequences for her failure. Magic didn’t come easy to her, especially in stressful times.
After binging through this novel, I was left feeling empty, dreading the fact that I had read it. Not because it was bad. Quite the contrary. The story was addictive. I had so many questions, and worst of all, I wanted nothing more than to be able to dive nose first into the sequel. The only problem: the sequel doesn’t release until October of this year. So, as one could imagine, I am stuck waiting. Stuck stalking this author’s social medias, desperately searching for any crumbs of content related to the sequel. (Spooky season can’t come fast enough!)
I would recommend this book to any fans of ya fantasy, or anyone looking for a smut-free witch mystery adventure. Every time I thought I was close to solving a part of the mystery, the author had me second-guess myself, and proved me wrong.
This book was witty and had so much love in it. It really felt like Maniscalco’s love letter to her family.
Overall, I think this will be one of my favorite ya series of the decade, if not of all time. I would definitely recommend every ya reader pick this book up at least once during their reading time.
(Bonus: book 2 just released, so you won’t have the excruciating pain of waiting like I did!)