Book Review
Title: Kingdom of the Cursed (Kingdom of the Wicked Book 2) by Kerri Maniscalco
Genre: Romance, Historical, Fantasy
Rating: 3.5 Stars
The first book in the series was a major disappointment for me but I have heard good things about the sequel so I decided to pick it up and this will determine if I read the finale. As I suspected it picks up almost immediately where book one left off with Wrath escorting Emilia to her new home as Pride’s bride. However, the route of getting there isn’t as simple as it seems since they have to pass through the Sin corridor because Emilia is human and this area of Hell is going to test her affinity for each House to determine where she belongs.
Much like I suspected Wrath and Pride affect Emilia strongly but also surprisingly Lust and Envy. She is also introduced to some of the stranger aspects of Hell such as hallucinations or illusions that she can’t tell from reality but those around her like Wrath can. They don’t actually head straight to House Pride either since Wrath has to be invited so he takes Emilia to House Wrath where they wait for the invitiation to be sent to them but it may take a while. Throughout this Wrath and Emilia send barbs and banter at each other but Wrath does let slip something about Pride’s bedroom habits that unsettles Emilia but she plays it off as she doesn’t want to give Wrath any validation after his betrayal. Surprisingly it is Anir, Wrath’s human second in command that gives her the best advice, he tells her if she wants information out of the Prince’s she is going to have to befriend them and appeal to the sin they are aligned with which is going to be difficult for her since Emilia is horribly at lying and keeping her intentions hidden. They also have the added complication of the upcoming Lupercalia feast. During this feast a guest of honour is chosen and a three day party is held in one of the Prince’s Houses. Emilia is most likely going to be chosen as the guest of honour but this is dangerous since her worst fear will be dragged out of her during the feast and potentially used against her by the Princes or their subjects and she can’t refuse. Also quite a few of the Prince’s have offered to host but Wrath hasn’t yet as he is waiting to see what Pride does which right now is nothing since we have seen him at all really. She also meets Fauna who I hope will becoming a friend for her as Emilia really needs them right now.
We are over a quarter through the novel now and all we have had is Wrath and Emilia making to House Wrath to wait for Pride to summon them with little else so far. Wrath and Emilia spend a lot of time together while waiting for Pride but there seems to be more going on than we realise. When Emilia starts receiving cryptic messages into form of animated skulls that sound like Vittoria she knows that these are clues and beings keeping track of them but nothing seems to be happening with that investigation right now. We do that both Antonio and Envy were involved in the murder of Vittoria for different reasons but they weren’t the ones that orchestrated the murders. Antonio was being controlled and Envy was just taking advantage of the situation to get the Horns of Hades. It was nice seeing a friendship and relationship developing between Wrath and Emilia but they are still keeping secrets from each other. This boils over when Wrath and Emilia give in to the attraction between them and we get one of the first spicy scenes of the book in the hot spring but this is cut off when Emilia beings experiencing a lot of pain. After this is dealt with by a healer, Wrath has to confess it is because of their marriage bond. The marriage bond is encouraging them to consummate the marriage but Wrath refuses to do this as it should be Emilia’s choice. He knows she can choose to marry Pride and there is nothing he can do about that but if they consummate their bond it makes her contract with Pride void. Emilia is obviously angry after learning this since she had invited Wrath to her bed despite his protests that he wouldn’t have slept with her as there are other ways to give and receive pleasure that don’t involve sex. However, she does ask him to take her House Envy where she will be staying for a little while and he agrees. I don’t why she choose House Envy given the less than ideal history between them but it makes sense in a way. If she is going to take Anir’s advice and befriend the Princes then starting with Envy is a good because she will have the hardest time winning him over.
Right now we are halfway through the novel and we haven’t had much development in terms of the murder mystery just more cryptic clues, we still haven’t meet Pride and the other Princes. The only other Prince we have met in this novel besides Wrath is Envy and we haven’t had much in terms of romance or spicy content either so I was wondering what the point was of the novel right now. I was struggling to keep track of everything at this point in the novel because more elements are being added but nothing is being resolved. Currently we have the plot line of Vittoria’s murder still unsolved, the plot line with Envy, he relationship between Wrath and Emilia and now there is a potential plot line with the Goddesses being added but nothing is being resolved we aren’t getting any answers which is really frustrating. With the Lupercalia feast approaching it has been decided that Emilia is going to be the guest of honour and it is going to be hosted by House Gluttony which isn’t the best since Gluttony and Lust are Houses that go all out with their sins. There also seems to be potential curse on Emilia after she stole a grimoire from Envy restricting her magic which she is going to need in order to survive the feast. Wrath has been training her the best he can but the fact this pair don’t communicate at all really is putting unnecessary tension on their relationships and causing issues. With just over 100 pages left in the book I didn’t have much hope that Maniscalco was going to resolve some of the smaller plot lines or at least move them along. I have a feeling the final book is going to resolve everything meaning I might have to read just to find out what the hell has been happening in the past two novels which I am not excited about. Unless Maniscalco pulls out something amazing in the final 100 pages I doubt this is going to get more than 3 stars from me.
The final section of the novel is interesting as we do get some great reveals that finally tell us where the story is going and what the purpose of everything has been as well as introducing the final showdown. However, I was a little disappointed that we didn’t get more scenes between Emilia and Wrath especially with the way the novel ended and if we don’t get to see this pair finally together in the final book I will go mad. Honestly, the last fifty pages of the novel almost made up for the fact that for the last two books I haven’t had much of an idea of what is going and been really bored. It wasn’t up to the standard of Stalking Jack the Ripper but it is close and I will have to pick up the final book when it comes out to see everything come together once and for all. While these books were hard work to get through because of the slow pacing and the fact not a lot is happening really they are still worth the read and I am excited to see what Maniscalco does in the final novel.
Buy it here:
Paperback/Hardcover: amazon.co.uk amazon.com
Kindle Edition: amazon.co.uk amazon.com
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