I wanted to love this book. It was one of my most anticipated reads for 2020. I was let down by all the set up. I felt like it was so slow for the first 75% and then wrapped quickly up in the next 25%. That part of the book was so good. I loved Emila's character arc and the princes were so interesting. Definitely going to be a great series, but this book could have used a little less build up and a bit more action.

OMG !!!! THIS BOOK WAS AMAZING!!! I LOVED EVERYTHING ABOUT IT!!! I mean almost everything...... the cliffhanger !!! For why!!! That is literally my only problem with this book !!!

The world that you emerge yourself into is phenomenal!! My god!! The concept of the Wicked is amazing , especially with the deadly sins being their own princes with their own goals and kingdoms. and being deliciously tempting !!! And Emilia is such an amazing character, so strong and full of vengences and truly knows what she wants ! Such a breath of fresh air for YA heroines!!!!

This is easily one of the best books I have read all year!! As soon as I finished it, I wanted to start reading it over !!!! I really cannot wait for the next book in this series!!! But I will be buying my own copy of it as well.

SO SO THANKFUL for NetGalley and Jimmy for giving me the advanced copy of this !!! I loved loved loved it so much!!!

What a fun romp this book was. While I have not read other books by Keri Maniscalco, I can certainly understand why her first series was a massive hit. Her writing is clear, her characters are feisty, and the plot continues to string you along until you stay up late reading (my experience for sure!).

Emilia comes from a long line of witches and has grown up hearing about the evil deeds of the princes of Hell, one for each of the seven deadly sins. She knows that these creatures are dangerous but believes they are safely sealed away, enabling her to lead a relatively normal life with her family. When her twin sister shows up gruesomely dead and there is evidence that she summoned a demon, however, Emilia is overwhelmed by her desire to learn what happened and avenge her sister, losing her moral compass in exchange.

There was much to enjoy about this book, including Emilia's struggle to manage her reactions and impulses as people around her begin to show up dead. Emilia made fully understandable mistakes which is one of my favorite choices an author can make. Emilia is powerful and willing to take action, but her mistakes are what make her believable, particularly when it comes to her actions around avenging her sister.

I also greatly enjoyed the expression of the seven deadly sins as represented by the demons we got to see. I thought the author was clever in thinking through how each could influence a person's reaction and how their powers should be based heavily in their sin. My favorite part? We didn't see them all. Something to look forward to in the next book.

My only major complaint about this book is based in its pacing. I was surprised by how long it took to get to the murder of Emilia's sister, Vittoria, particularly given that it is revealed in the book's description. We had a bunch of build up and while it certainly did make me feel for Emilia when her sister died, we don't need it. Then we had the mad dash to the finish where the last 10% has no time to even process what all is happening. Powering through these two spots, though, will result in an excellent ride.

I can't wait to pick up the sequel to this one and will be adding it to my preorder for whenever it is released. My thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this copy in exchange for my fair and honest review. I'm looking forward to the next book here and will likely pick up Ms. Maniscalco's past series too just for good measure.

DNF. Unfortunately I could not connect to the characters or the plot. The writing seemed to be fairly average, which surprised me given the author's popularity. I didn't feel interested or care about what happened. Maybe fans of the author will feel different.

I could not put this book down. I was sucked in from page one and loved reading every second of this book. The only thing I don't like is that I've got to wait for book 2!!

I received an E-ARC copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review!

Oh hello. I need the sequel please. Why did I request and read this early? Now I’m just gonna have to wait extra long before the sequel... anywaaaay

This is my first Kerri Maniscalco book. I have yet to read her Stalking Jack the Ripper series, but as soon as I saw the synopsis for this one- I know I had to read it!
Although I was curious and anxious to read this one, I was hesitant as well. I usually dislike murder mystery and thriller type books. But this one was so much more.
We follow Emilia Di Carlo, a witch. Daughter to a long line of witches. When her twin sister Vittoria is murdered under suspicious circumstances, Emilia sets out on a quest to find her sister’s murderer and exact justice and revenge upon them. But the stakes are raised and more witches are found dead. Something sinister is behind these murders and Emillia is inevitably tied to it! With the help of Wrath, a demon prince of hell that Emilia accidentally/not-so-accidentally summoned, Emilia uncovers one truth after another trying to detangle the web of secrets and magic. Her sister may have held more secrets back from her sister than she let on...

This book was so beautifully constructed. One mystery after another with enough magic to make your head spin, a pinch of romance with a promise and taste for more in future books. I couldn’t get enough of it.
Our main characters are Emilia and Wrath. Their dynamic from the very beginning is amazing. Mistrust, secrets, and lots of sexual tension lead for an interesting dynmic between the duo as they try to uncover the truth amongst the circumstances of the recent murders. The further we get into the book, the more tension and angst we get from the two. They keep pushing at each other with their snarky comments and sarcastic remarks.

Throughout the book we meet a few of the seven demon princes of hell. Each encounter more deadly then the previous and leaves Emillia with a sense of dread and fear for her life and her family’s. But that does not deter her from finding justice for her sister. She has a one track mind. She’s focused and she knows the stakes for everything she uncovers. The more she learns, the more she realizes this is way more than just her sister and has the potential to wreck havoc upon the human world.

So, about my feelings a bit. JEJWOEJDKWKWKWKWWLQLQLE I need the sequel. That ending killed me. This book has easily been a five star read and has become one of my favorite books! I loved Emilia and Wrath’s relationship. I love their push-pull dynamic. Their exchanges made me laugh and squeal and oh damn the sexual tension was H.O.T. With some epic mystery, magic, a dash of romance and lots at stakes, Kingdom of the Wicked succeeds at entrancing me from start to finish.

Also, did anyone else become INCREDIBLY hungry reading this book? So much Italian food was mentioned and I wanted to eat everything in the book.

I’m so hyped for the sequel! Can’t wait to see where the plot is going next!

Kingdom of the Wicked by Kerri Maniscalco was a fun, witchy read that kept me turning the pages well past my bedtime! I loved the compelling voice and atmospheric setting! Parts of it were a tiny bit repetitive and predictable, but overall there was great character development and tons of intrigue. I only read book one of Stalking Jack The Ripper (also by Kerri Maniscalco) and didn't love it, but I enjoyed this a lot more! The ending was intense and I can't wait for book two! I'd recommend it for fans of witchy contemporary books with unique settings, like Wicked Like A Wildfire, and Winterwood. Thanks NetGalley and JIMMY Patterson Books for the free copy to review.

I loved, loved, loved this book! This is my first book by Kerri Maniscalco, and now I have to go back and read her other ones!

Twins Emilia and Vittoria are witches, and they have grown up with the knowledge that there are Wicked princes of Hell that threaten their lives. They must always wear their special necklaces that help guard them and continue to use protective magic. Then one night, Vittoria is brutally murdered with her heart ripped out of her chest. Emilia discovers Vittoria and vows vengeance, even if it means using dark magic, something her grandmother has spent her entire life warning the twins about. Her use of dark magic goes a bit wrong when she summons, not a demon to assist her, but one of the very Princes of Hell she has worked to avoid her entire life. The two are immediate enemies, and yet they both seem to want the same thing; to find Vittoria’s murderer.

This book is so great! The creation of this world of secret witches, hiding in plain sight was wonderful. The details of the magic were not so overly complicated that I got lost, but instead were slipped into the story seamlessly. I loved learning new pieces of the magical system as the story progressed.

The Wicked Prince, Wrath, is just the kind of dark love interest that I want in a story. He’s got this angry, brooding side, but we get to see these moments of softness that made him vulnerable and lovable. When Emilia and Wrath are together, their banter is wonderful.

As the two of them dive deeper and deeper into the murder mystery, the plot continues to unfold to expose new secrets. I was fully invested in how this story would end and couldn’t wait to find out what happens!

Overall, I absolutely loved this one! It’s filled with magical creatures, dangerous demons, and a storyline that gripped me from the start!

Kingdom of the Wicked was my first foray into Kerri Maniscalco’s books, and boy did it not disappoint.

The story follows two sisters, Emilia and Vittoria, in Sicily, both of who are Strega--witches. But when Vittoria is murdered and added to a long string of witch deaths that have been popping up, Emilia is hell-bent on vengeance, and who better to team up with than a prince of hell to help? Together, they soon learn that something much more sinister is lying beneath it all, and that love might just be as dangerous as whatever they’re hunting down.

I have to admit, it did take me a while to get immersed in Maniscalco’s writing style. I wouldn’t say it was hard to read, but rather she has a good sense of voice and writing from the perspective of our protagonist, Emilia. There was quite a bit of telling rather than showing, which was a shame since this book was written in first-person and offered many avenues of helping the reader get versed in the head of the character more. But even then, <b>this book carried a spooky vibe throughout it all</b>, making this, in my opinion, one of the best books to read in October.

Now onto the characters!

Emilia was...annoying, to say the least. And I hate to say that because the premise does offer the promise of such a kickass heroine. While I did eventually grow to like her, part of why I had a hard time reading the first 40% was because of Emilia’s immaturity and lack of brain cells (which carries on throughout the book). I understand that she might have been irrational due to grief, but her actions still greatly annoyed me, especially after she finally seemed to pull herself together. Though, because of this, Maniscalco did a really great job at writing her character development throughout the book, and while still not what I expected her to be, I’m excited to see where Emilia goes next.

...and then came Wrath.

I cannot express my love for his character. He is the perfect mix of arrogance and wit--just enough of both to not tip him into the “annoying” category for me. He was a very interesting character to read from, especially with the haze surrounding all his motivations. Wrath contradicted his character at every turn, and yet he stayed true to himself all the while. I understand that sentence is an oxymoron in itself, but I truly admire the execution of his character.

The only part I didn’t like about the relationship between these two (other than the load of sexual tension that never gets resolved--literal torture) was the fact that Emilia only started being tolerable AFTER Wrath came along, which sent up warning signals to my brain. Women do not get interesting only after their male counterpart comes along, nor does said male counterpart mark the start of their character development. I don’t know if that was the intention or not, but to me, it implied that Emilia <b>only</b> grew a backbone because of Wrath, even though trying to solve her sister’s murder was good enough motivation for that. I’m sure it didn’t come across like that to everyone, but it just didn’t sit well for me.

<b>As for the plot, it was a lot to take in.</b> You might want to take some notes or something if you have shit memory like I do because it definitely takes you through some twist and turns, and pairing that with all the demon princes (of whom I forgot which one did which bad thing), I found it difficult to keep track of. Even then, I feel like that disconcerting feeling was part of the charm, though it was still really, really hard for me to keep up.

The twists in this book were disappointing, I have to say. While I did mention earlier the very messy path the plot takes you on, I still somehow kept my mark on one specific character. And based on the other reviews I’ve read, I think it’s safe to say I’m not the only one who guessed it right off the bat.

Which brings me onto my next point: the ending. It was just as disorienting as the rest of the plot...in a bad way. I felt like it could have been developed more instead of just rushing through it, as I didn’t (and still don’t) get the whole gist of all the little nuances that had been “explained” at the end.

Other than that point about the ending, I would like to make one final comment about it: WHAT THE HADSKFHAKDJHGRAEIGUHDFKL

Overall, Kingdom of the Wicked was a delightfully spooky read for the season, and I will most definitely be picking up the sequel!

tl;dr: hot demon princes, murder, and food--what more to ask for?

I fell in love with Kerri Maniscalco’s writing back a few years ago when I read Stalking Jack the Ripper and got very very excited when The Kingdom of the Wicked was announced.

I absolutely adored the world Maniscalco created; the mix between demons and witches on an Italian background is to die for. Moreover, Wrath is to die for too. I mean, come on. I did like our MC, Emilia, although she got on my nerves a few times because of how stupid her decisions and reactions could be. But the tension between Wrath and Emilia was everything I could ask for and I’m so, so excited to see more of it in the next book.

When it comes to the story, I was really intrigued and could not put the book down. I did foresee the big twist at the end quite early on and found some elements in the plot to be a bit useless but I understand Maniscalco needed those to introduce the sequel so I’m not too mad. The ending definitely left wanting me more and I cannot wait to read the sequel!

Twin sisters, one adventurous and outspoken, the other introverted and bookish. An ancient pophecy that turned out to be true left one of them dead and the other at the mercy of demons trying to break through the weakened gates of hell...Sounds intriguing doesn't it?

Emilia, determined to find her sister's killer, tries to summon a demon to strike a bargain but accidentally summons one of the seven princes of hell, Wrath, who has his own motivations for helping her find what (who) she seeks. Together they follow clues, run into some of Wrath's brothers and battle other demons but at a great price.

This book was incredibly addicting and I couldn't put it down. With that said, its not without faults.

Firstly, the timing of this book was unclear. The years may have been mentioned once but aside from that it didn't feel "old". It might as well have happened yesterday, just with an absence of technology.

Somehow I find it hard to believe that anyone in the 19th century would react nonchalantly to tattoos, especially on a girl. Hell, people still make their opinions known now, in the 21st when tattoos are much more common.

And the sight of an unmarried girl with a strange (tattooed) man no one's ever seen before doesn't turn into at least one person going to tell her family every time it happens?

Similarly, Emilia (and Vittoria, during her short life) just does whatever she wants with no consequences except a scold here and there. She just turned eighteen, and okay, that gives her more freedom but not so much, especially not during that time period.

Those were the main things that bugged me, aside from certain plot holes like spells that existed when they served a purpose but in other situations it's as if they never existed at all, information that was given but never used and so on.

I did like Emilia. And Wrath. And the grandmother who actually has some insane skills.

The family bonds were well done too, and so was the restaurant and the descriptions of food. It made me hungry and I had to go eat soon after reading (unfortunately not Italian dishes).

The quest to find the killer, while entertaining, set things up for the next book more than it explained things in this one. Which is okay because I'm definitely going to read book two, but I'll have to wait a long time for it, so it would've been better to write a more satisfactory ending.

The writing was effective and gripping. The romance wasn't bad but there was something missing from it. Maybe more time? Time spent on side characters that don't matter as much...

Which reminds me, Emilia's best friend didn't strike me as such. We only saw her to move the story along. I understand that it's dangerous for witches to meet each other in public, but if they truly were best friends I'm sure they'd find a way to hang out, unrelated to what Emilia needed her help with.

The one true villain, the killer, wasn't a big surprise and I was a tad disappointed. Emilia was so stubborn thinking it was this person or that demon that it made it obvious the killer was who they turned out to be.

Either way, I can't wait to continue this story and I'll check out the author's other books meanwhile to get my fill of her skillful writing.

*Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for providing me with an e-ARC in exchange for an honest review*

OMG OMG OMG!!!!! How long do we have to wait for book 2? I need it NOW!!!

I devoured this book! I have only read book one in the SJTR series but this was so much better than that. This was fast paced, exciting, dark and overall intriguing story. I hate Maniscalco a bit for the ending though, especially withought being able to immediately pick up a second book. This one got in my head, I predicted the person involved with the murders pretty quickly but can't wait to continue to find out what will happen now!!!!

I NEED MORE!!!

I thought it was predictable and that the ending was promising but somehow underwhelming? Does that make sense?

There was a lot of stuff that could have been introduced to us in the second book. Like, some stuff just seemed random, like the werewolves. I guess that will be explored further in the next books but at the moment it’s just random world building plugged in for no plausible reason. And the introduction of Brother Carmino was done too late in the book for me to consider him a suspect.

I kind of also expected more sexual tension between Wrath and Emilia, but their relationship doesn’t really progressed, which makes the slow burn a bit underwhelming and less angsty.

I suspected the killer right from the start, it was just too predictable, so it wasn’t a surprise.

I think we needed more from Emilia, she had no personality other than seeking revenge for her sister. Her love for cooking was completely forgotten. I like that her skepticism continued to be an important part of her character though and played a part in how she made decisions throughout the story.

The reason why I didn’t find Emilia very relatable and didn’t care for her that much is because in the book we don’t see her having meaningful relationships with anyone, we’re just told they exist. Like her relationship with her sister. We don’t witness much, we’re just told that they are very close.

Another example is: she has a best friend that hardly ever makes an appearance when she could have helped her figure out everything around the murders as she’s also a with.

Overall it was alright but I definitely expected more. I’ll continue with the series and hope it gets better from here.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for the free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. My opinion was not affected by the free copy.

Despite my eventual disenchantment with her Jack the Ripper series, I still liked Maniscalco's writing enough to be interested when I saw this book. That's what makes this one hard for me to rate: I did like parts of it and I think the author is very talented in certain areas. I just think she's very weak in others.

Let's get the negatives out of the way first, as always. I wasn't entirely sure what time period this was set in and on the one hand, I kind of liked that as it gave a very timeless quality to the writing. It didn't feel dated by pop cultural references or mentioning certain technology. I also don't know a lot about Italian history so I couldn't really grasp if anything going on was supposed to be accurate to how people acted back whenever this was supposed to take place. Except when it came to the attitudes of people concerning Vittoria's habit of talking constantly about the devil and otherwise shooting her mouth off inappropriately. Are you seriously telling me that people just laughed that off? I don't think comments like that would be ignored or seen as a joke TODAY, let alone back in earlier time periods. Especially considering that they had a family friend who was in the church.

Another thing that bothered me was the portrayal of demons. I had to suspend my disbelief but even factoring that in, the rules just don't make any sense. How is it that lesser demons have more power and freedom than the princes of Hell? And what exactly are the rules of demons coming and going? Are we to assume that all the princes of Hell featured in this book were summoned by someone? If so, who summoned which prince? If not, why is their influence only just now noticeable? Were they always able to come and go or is this a more recent development?

Regarding the mystery, it was pretty poorly constructed. I don't know if this is intentional or not, since Emilia never even looked for clues that might have pointed her to the culprit. On the one hand, I can understand why she focused her attention where she did, but on the other, if this was meant to be a mystery then there was no evidence to suggest that anyone was guilty of anything. Something characters actually point out when Emilia tries to accuse them. Yes, the culprit wasn't difficult to figure out; I just wish there was more investigating and clue-gathering to help reach that conclusion.

And then we have the romance. If this can even qualify as a romance. The "enemies to lovers" trope isn't a terrible one, except it was so hard to tell Wrath's motivations or reasons for him to be interested in Emilia. A lot of their "romance" was literally forced. I would've been fine if this was portrayed as something dark and twisted, but no, I think this was supposed to be seen as hot and steamy and worth rooting for. Not the direction I want to go in when one of them is a demon. A very sad sort of demon, too. Sometimes he seemed legitimately threatening but not in the same way as the other princes Emilia comes across in the narrative. Again, not sure if this is because of plot reasons or because the author didn't want the romantic lead to be too threatening.

Oh, and Emilia has a special power that goes nowhere and adds nothing. If you cut it out, nothing would be lost. Same with a power Vittoria mentions she has. What was the point in that?

All that said, the writing is still very good. The opening prologue intrigued me immediately. I wish that the entire book was written like that rather than sticking us in Emilia's point of view. The action scenes were good and so was the atmosphere. I don't know much about cooking but there are a lot of descriptions about food and cooking that will make your mouth water. There are also some pretty violent and gory scenes in this that should be handled with discretion if you're thinking of giving this book to a younger reader. There's a pretty disturbing and uncomfortable scene that I thought was written well but am on the fence on how it was actually handled in the story, and while I'm not a fan of the romance, there's no denying Maniscalco has a talent for writing steamy scenes.

I think if this book had more firmly embraced the dark tone and cut out the romance entirely, it would've turned out a lot better. There are some interesting discussions about good and evil, the choices a person makes, how far someone would go for a person they loved, and it touches on grief and depression in very well-written ways. In some ways it's a hot mess but it's not without its better moments. Read for yourself and see what you think!

The first few chapters are based arround the dynamic between the sisters and the rules that are set in place in their house by their grandmother. While Emilia follows them very rudimentarily, Vittoria tends to be sneaky around them. Emilia’s point of view tells us a little bit about their magic and their beliefs. The author does a good job setting out the world we’re going to inhabit. We can understand the gist of it on the very first chapter. At this point, I could say the writing style is even atmospheric, and it’s building up to something horrible relating to all of Nonna’s worries.

This feeling of tension sort of breaks out when (I don’t think this is a spoiler, it’s the synopsis) Vittoria is murdered, an the book starts its murder mystery but with demons and dark arts. Up to this point I think the book is at its strongest. The world is fun, cool elements are being brought in and we have a motive for our protagonist to kick in the plot with all the intensity. Seeing Emilia waddle through not being that great at the sort of magic she needs and going on despite this is very entertaining. I found myself chearing for her.

However, I don’t know (or maybe I do) what happened after this but I stopped feeling invested in the story. I will try to explain what I think happened but at the same time I want to give the book the benefit of the doubt.

For one, I think maybe I expected for things to feel just as tense as the first chapters regarding the demons. When Wrath shows up, how the novel works with demons changes. Obviously, one point a book tries to make is that the tales witches tell about demons tend to be exagerated. Still, the characterisation started to fail on me. The dialogue, combined with how the characters acted made me lose the inmersion in the story. It felt superficial sometimes. Even though the writing style had its very good moments, I don’t think it helped with this feeling. I don’t want to call it cheesy but I felt like may times the story forgot about how intese the characters were. I mean, we’re talking about the princes of hell. C’mon.

Furthermore, it seemed to me that the story often acted as if something was happening, even though it wasn’t. I can appreciate the drama, I live for Drama™, but I couldn’t buy into alot of the Drama™ plotpoints. Maybe it had a case of telling and not showing. For example, many times Emilia reminds us that Wrath is her veryown sworn enemy, but at the same time I don’t see why that is. For me, me not buying into the drama and what the characters’ relationships were meant to be was what made me feel less invested in the story. I couldn’t feel that much because the book constantly tried to tell me how to feel. Things were happening but they didn’t have the impact they should have had. And this is why I also didn’t enjoy the pacing that much.

So, in conclusion, I think maybe it’s not the book, it’s me. It is an entertaining story, and I do want to know how it continues. I simply didn’t vibe with it and it could’ve been told much better with all the potential that it had. I give it 2.7 stars.

It was the cover that drew me in. Honestly I was in love with the cover before I saw the author. Luckily love at first sight makes a fool of people… I had to read this book because of the cover! Kerri Maniscalco and I have had a rocky past. Four times I have started Stalking Jack The Ripper and four times I have DNF’ed it. But this cover…. I was so in love with the cover.

Fast forward a week later. It turns out I am not only wildly in love with the cover. But this story… Oh this story it has everything that I love. I just don’t know where to start, without sounding like lovesick teenager. But unnecessary to say I thought Kingdom of the wicked was one of the best books I have read in 2020.
Kingdom of the wicked combines everything the I absolutely love in books. The main character Emilia is a witch. A real one, not a new age one. One with tons of magic, an ancient bloodline and even a grimoire. People who follow my reviews know I have a thing for strong female characters and Emilia is exactly the type of girl I love in books. Throughout the boo she undergoes so much growth that you really see her grow from a dreamy, quite girl into a vengeful, powerful woman.
Then there are The Wicked, or the seven royal demon princes. I love a book about demons, fallen angels and the devil. Kingdom of the Wicked steps away from the traditional biblical stories about the devil and weaves a completely different myth about the devil. I absolutely loved the way Kerri Maniscalco crafted the different demon princes we meet in this book. And I cant wait to meet more of them in the next book. They are dangerous, mysterious and very intriguing.
And then last but not least this book is full of food. I love stories about food, almost as much as I love actual food. I really think that all the recipes, the talking about Italian cuisine and Emilia loving food gave an extra dimension to the story. I actually wrote down several recipes to try myself!
Kingdom of the wicked is for me without any doubt the surprise of 2020. This is a wild ride that is not for the faint of hearted. It is dark, twisted and full of blood, gore and magic. I can’t wait to dive into the second book of the series.

I'm a huge fan of world building and back stories. When a book dives deep into those, I'm consumed. Kerri Maniscalco did just that. While the book felt like it lacked in other places, I am so sure the amount of world building put into this book means the series is going to be one we talk about for ages. Questions are left unanswered(I love that!) and makes me want to keep going until I've got all the answers! I will definitely be picking up the rest of the series as it comes out.

THIS BOOK!! It was amazing! I could not stop reading, and how am I supposed to wait a year for the sequel?

I loved Kerri Maniscalco’s previous series, so I knew I had to read this. You should have seen me when I saw I was accepted to read an e-ARC!

I was sucked into this story from the start. We follow Emilia, who very soon in the story finds the dead body of her twin sister, Vittoria. She then swears the figure out what happened and seek vengeance! To be able to do this she needs to use dark magic, deal with demons and princes of Hell, especially Wrath. And it was amazing!

I loved Emilia! She was such an interesting character, and I loved her banter with Wrath. Wrath being her investigation partner. Emilia did make some little bit too quick decisions at times, but I loved the book too much to be bothered haha! Something Maniscalco proved with writing Stalking Jack the Ripper, is that she can write romance! And she did it again! This book contains a great enemies-to-lovers story!

The setting of this book is amazing. It takes place in the 19th century in Sicily. And now I want to go there! The whole book is so dark and mysterious.

I read this book in like three sittings, and it probably would have been one sitting if I would have been able to. I was just so invested in the plot and it was so intriguing, that I just needed to continue! And the fact that this book has really short chapters, makes it very easy to read one more chapter haha!

And the ending..!!! I need to know how this book is going to continue. At some point while reading the book, I kinda predicted this ending. Then forgot about it, and then it did happen. But I didn’t mind too much, because the way that we got there, I could mot have predicted and it all happened way differently then I could have come up with myself!

I know this review is just saying that it is great and amazing, but that is because it is. And I just do not know how to formulate it well haha!

I was very tempted to give this two stars because I could not stand the main character. There was no growth! She was impulsive and reckless the entire book. Just when I thought she'd make an informed decision, she was running off doing something absurd again. I've read other books by Kerri Maniscalco, which is why I read this, but the writing itself left a lot to be desired. Sometimes, the writing seemed geared for a younger audience and other times it was more mature. It was not consistent. And the story itself has a lot of holes! I understand there will be at least another book based on the ending, but there were many subplots that were not clearly explained, like the curse. I trudged through this book so I could make an informed review, but it was a difficult read.

Do you ever just finish a book and ask yourself was it me, or you? Because I did that on no less than five occasions with this one, and I don't know how to feel about that.

Let's get this out of the way first: why did I struggle with getting into this? KotW is my first introduction to Kerri Maniscalco, and I'd heard great things about her previous series. So imagine how confused I was when I found this book rather difficult to follow. I don't know if it's because I read an uncorrected ARC or I'm just distracted, but this wasn't an easy story to sink into. I found myself zoning out several times, only to have to go back a page or two and reread it. There were also several scenes where I felt like something was missing. Like a character accepted a revelation too easily, we moved on from something way too fast, or we weren't introduced to people right. Too many scenes came across as rushed or without the full details, and that kind of bummed me out because there is so much to love in this story.

I think where the real problem came in is the world-building. I could not get grounded in the story because I couldn't figure out the world. There are witches and demons, sure, got that no problem. Loved it. An Italian setting in Palermo, Sicily. Easy, I've even been there before myself. But what I couldn't figure out was when. There was very little indication to tell me if this was an Italy with electricity, cars, etc. There were references to an icebox and romance novels, but it wasn't until near the end when the Kingdom of Italy was referenced that my guess of 1920 slash 1930 was confirmed. It may not be a dig deal for other readers, but it's something I need to be able to imagine the story in my head and let it play out like a little movie.

As I said, there is still a lot to love about this. I wasn't expecting there to be such a dark tone to this story, but when Maniscalco's scenes shine, it tends to be in those moments of the more macabre nature. Of course, there's a lot of murder tied up in the mystery of this book. If you read the summary you'll know that Emilia finds her twin sister murdered, her heart ripped clean out. Nor is she the only witch this happens to, thus the need to team up with a demon to find the person desecrating these women. The witches and demons that the author leans into here are great. I wasn't expecting Princes of Hell and the seven sins, but it worked well and gave some scenes fabulous imagery and danger.

What really sold me on this book was the dynamic between Emilia and Wrath. I may have struggled to drown in this book, but their scenes together perked. me. the fk. up. Also, their scenes tended to be--for lack of a better word--HOT. Like damn, the chemistry between these mortal enemies was beautiful. The banter and the soft moments ... such fun! Am I happy with how it ended? No, but I'm hopeful the second book will set a few things straight.

Yes, I fully intend on looking for the second book. I genuinely don't understand how I had such a hard time with this, so I do plan on a re-read in future.