Review: Kingdom of the Wicked

Kingdom of the Wicked by Kerri Maniscalco
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I really enjoyed this.  The premise of twin sisters who happen to be witches fighting off demons and the princes of hell was such a unique and creative concept.  This story takes place in the time of witch hunts in Italy, so the families with magical talents must live in hiding.  Vittoria and Emilia have hidden their magic from a young age under the tutelage of their Nonna.  Nonna always gives them information in cryptic verses about their magic and why they should stay away from "the Wicked" aka princes of hell.  When Vittoria is murdered, Emilia sets out to avenger her sister and find out what dark magic her twin had gotten herself entangled in.  In her quest to find her sister's killer, Emilia finds herself allied with none other than Wrath, one of the princes she was warned against all of her life.  Wrath has his own agenda, part of which is to uncover who the murder is as well.  Emilia quickly learns that while demons and princes of hell don't outright lie, they can deceive and omit information, so if she wants to find out what is truly going on, she can only trust herself and she must learn to trust her own power.

This left us with a ton of unanswered questions.  Not much is explained about the witches and their magic.  There are witches, devils, demons, prophecies and curses and somehow they are all intertwined.  I'm still have alot of questions as to what happened in the past before Vittoria and Emilia ever came around and how Emilia thinks she is going to gain her vengeance for her sister's death.  I'm hoping some of my questions get answered in the next book.

I feel like Emilia had a good bit of character development in this book.  She went through quite a bit and had to deal with pretty much every emotion.  She started out quiet and reserved, dealt with grief and depression, anger, and ended up on a mission for power and vengeance.  I would have liked to see her confront her Nonna about all of the cryptic messages and actually get some information about what is going on and how to stop some of the chaos, but maybe we'll see some of that in the next book.  The same goes for Wrath, I hope to see their relationship grow, as their is definitely something brewing between them.

Overall I really enjoyed this.  It was a fun read and if you liked Maniscalco's previous books I think you'll like this as well.

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