El libro me gustó mucho pero siento que el enredo de las situaciones o el problema principal al final fue una manera muy simple el solucionarla.

Kingdom of the Wicked is a lot of fun. It intertwines familiar aspects of Catholicism with a new twist with the sins as Princes of Hell. While the magic system could have been fleshed out further, it felt more balanced than many others, showing some of the consequences of using too much power. The banter was bantering for sure. The more tender moments were very sweet, and I can't wait to see how the relationships develop in the sequels. It's fairly obvious who the original enemy is, but there were enough twists and turns and additions along the way that it didn't matter as much that that was predictable. 

I loved this book! It was mysterious, sexy, well written, dark, enemies to well enemies in this book, great banter, and hard to put down!

Overall: 4.5/5 stars 
Spice: 0.5/5 (kissing and some descriptive language) this ramps up in book two! 

The only reason I removed half a star was because the ending felt rushed. Other than then that unbelievably good read!  

I read this already once before and loved it then too. The re-read was just as enjoyable, especially this time as an audio.

Emilia's family are witches. They live and work in Italy, at a family run restaurant. Emilia loves to spend her time cooking with her family, coming up with new recipes and in her spare time, reading romance novels. But Emilia and her twin sister Vittoria have always been warned to keep their cornicellos on them at all times. But they must never be brought together. Other than one time when they were ten, Emilia and her sister listened to their Nonna, and never removed them from their person, or brought them together. But things are rapidly changing, and when Vittoria is found with her heart ripped out of her chest, Emilia will stop at nothing to get to the bottom of her sister's murder, even if that means summoning a demon to help her. What she doesn't count for is accidentally summoning a Prince of demons, instead of a lowly regular one. Not fully understanding the gravity of what shes done, Emilia embarks on a quest to get the answers she needs to make sense of this murder. She receives instead, more questions than answers, and further unravels a curse (or prophecy?) that she was unaware of at the start. Can she trust one of the seven Princes of Hell, to help her find what she is looking for?

I loved both Emilia and Wrath (especially Wrath). The setting was delicious and rich, and though the lore and ultimately the mystery/plot became a little muddled and confusing, I was still all in on this because their (Emilia and Wrath's) dynamic was addicting. I remember upon first read, I immediately bought the next two books before finishing this one, because I knew I wanted to binge the whole thing. That didn't happen at the time, though it is happening now. The audio, though one reader, is well produced with little added music occasionally, and the reader using difference voices for each of the characters. I liked this a lot, and can see myself re-reading this a few times.

The writing in this novel was serviceable at time, but lacked any real beauty. At times, the writing felt robotic: the rhythm of the sentences were unvaried, the word choices odd and chunky, and the emotion lacking from vital moments. It’s a shame the writing was so poor, because elements of the story were definitely compelling but lacked execution.

I wanted to like the characters more than I actually did. Emilia had a very cool conception, but I wanted more depth with her emotions. While her personality itself was interesting, it wasn’t brought to life as well as I would have wanted on the page. I thought there were a couple of great character moments between Emilia and Wrath, yet I wish so deeply there could have been more. I also think that while Emilia’s family was relatively well-rounded, I would have loved more than a passing glimpse at her sister’s personality. It felt mainly like Maniscalco wanted her to be fun and quirky, and yet it came off as a bit chaotic and underdeveloped. 

Plot: 3.25⭐️/5 

The concept of this story is fascinating. And, while its execution was a little clumsy in spots, it read fairly well. A few snags, slow parts, and plot holes aside, I did fly through the story fairly quickly. At first glance it was fun; on deeper analysis, it’s definitely lacking depth and nuance. I do want to say that if you’re looking for a fun, fast-moving plot, this definitely might be for you! 

World: 3.75⭐️/5 

The world of this novel really grabbed me. On a personal level, I’ve heard many aspects of Sicilian folklore before, so it was rather fun to see them brought into this world as real-life magic. I enjoyed a lot of the references to Italian culture. I do think certain elements could have been introduced and explored a bit more deeply, but I did have fun with the world. 

Readers looking for a fast and fun book; Those who know some elements of Italian/Sicilian culture; fans of a decent, fast-paced fantasy romance mystery novel.

Blood, murder, injury, injury detail, murder, gore, body horror, sexual content (mild), 

The ending felt a bit forced to me. I didn’t enjoy it near as much as I did aspects of the middle, and I don’t feel a huge pull to read the next one.

Kingdom of the Wicked gets barely 2.5 stars from me because of the interesting setting and general premise. The characters were too stereotypical for my taste, and the story is not really clear. 

Emilia is a witch living in historic Sicily. Her sister Vittoria gets murdered, and she summons a demon prince which her grandmother has always warned her about. For most of the time in this book, we just spend the time with Emilia and Wrath which was just a bit boring and not engaging. This can work but not with uninteresting characters like those two are. The storytelling wasn’t great either. Conflicts could be solved quickly if the characters just talked to each other, and some things are just not well explained so that there were a lot of moments where I didn’t know what was happening. Like for example I didn’t understand why no one said anything about Emilia being gone for like two weeks, and I didn’t even know where she’s been. Emilia also apparently cares a lot for a grandma but doesn’t even

visit her when she’s injured

? 

Besides this, this novel had one of my least favourite tropes, the

”we’re suddenly engaged!”

trope. It also irritated me that there were randomly some kind of

vampires

. Towards the end, the deus ex machine moments became more frequent, and it was so obvious who the murderer was. 

Like I’ve mentioned, I really liked the Italian and Sicily setting but for quite some time, I wasn’t sure whether this book was contemporary or historical since there were not enough descriptions. Besides this, the timeline and universe were a bit hard for me to grasp. In contrast, the atmosphere created was quite nice and especially her feelings after her sister’s death were depicted so well. 

I don’t have too much to say about the characters. Emilia is an okay protagonist, but she felt a bit stereotypical to me. Her love interest Wrath is of course muscular and has dark hair. The side characters are in part not well characterized, I think we don’t hear her parents say one word. Besides this, it annoys me that there are of course only demon princes but not princesses. 

Kingdom of the Wicked is probably most interesting for those people that focus on the romance aspects of romantasy. The fantasy elements were unfortunately underdeveloped, just like the story and the characters.