Kingdom of the Wicked by Kerri Maniscalco
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
This book baffled me, I guess that’s how I would describe how I feel after reading it.
But first a few positive things: the author does a great job at adding flavor to the world of the story. I love that she uses many Italian and Latin expressions (always a win for me), the descriptions of the food left me salivating, and she did a great job at setting up Emilia’s world.
Now for the negative (hopefully constructive) points.
I’m not sure what it was but something felt off all through the story. I’m confused because this has everything I normally love in a darker fantasy: potentially great characters from witches to demons, great setting (Italy of yesterday), a promising budding romance between light and dark, a great mystery to be solved. Yet, it left me empty.
I almost DNFed it a few times but stuck to it because it held so much promise. I discussed it with a friend at work who is a mood reader like I am and I tried to explain to her what it was that just didn’t click with me and I think I have an answer. Maybe…
The protagonist’s emotions didn’t come through. There was all these horrible things happening to her and those around her, including to people she truly cared about and yet, even though she claimed (the story is in first person) to be distraught, it just didn’t feel like that to me.
Same thing with her relationship with Wrath, it just didn’t ring true. There was a lot of her telling the reader how bad he was and that she couldn’t possibly like him, but no true emotion. Funny thing is that Wrath came across as a better person than she was which I don’t believe was the point. So weird.
It seemed as if every “new” lead in the mystery felt like it just dropped out of nowhere. Mystery needs breadcrumbs and there were very few of those in this story.
I also didn’t feel a connection between events. Things just got “dropped” in the story from the great void, I guess. And I hate to say this but the MC came across as stupid sometimes. The original murder was in the monastery. Wouldn’t you think there was a connection between the murder and the monks who lived there? I could go on…
Even though it ended in a cliffhanger I don’t think I will be reading the next book. I want to feel emotionally connected to the characters and that didn’t happen with this story at all. I haven’t read the other reviews yet on purpose because I don’t want to be influenced by them but I am going to do it right after I post this review. Very curious to know if I was the only one who felt this way.
I really wanted to love this story, but unfortunately I really didn’t like it much. I hope the characters redeem themselves in the next volume for the sake of the readers. The potential is there.
Author Natalina Reis 