Kingdom of the Cursed by Kerri Maniscalco

e-Audio, 14:15:03
Narrated by: Marisa Calin
Release Date: October 5, 2021
Published by: Hachette Book Group
Read from: October 14-19, 2021
Kingdom of the Wicked, #2
Source: Library’s Overdrive
TW: MC is in Hell, At one point MC has no control over her body and is asked to do some things under someone else’s influence
For Readers Interested In: Paranormal, Demons, NA, Witches, Sparkly Cover

      After selling her soul to become Queen of the Wicked, Emilia travels to the Seven Circles with the enigmatic Prince of Wrath, where she’s introduced to a seductive world of vice.
     She vows to do whatever it takes to avenge her beloved sister, Vittoria… even if that means accepting the hand of the Prince of Pride, the king of demons.
     The first rule in the court of the Wicked? Trust no one. With back-stabbing princes, luxurious palaces, mysterious party invitations, and conflicting clues about who really killed her twin, Emilia finds herself more alone than ever before. Can she even trust Wrath, her one-time ally in the mortal world… or is he keeping dangerous secrets about his true nature?
     Emilia will be tested in every way as she seeks a series of magical objects that will unlock the clues of her past and the answers she craves…
     One sister.
     Two sinful princes.
     Infinite deception with a side of revenge… Welcome to Hell.
     From #1 New York Times bestselling author of Stalking Jack the Ripper Kerri Maniscalco comes the sizzling, sweepingly romantic sequel to Kingdom of the Wicked!

*MY THOUGHTS*

I was not ready for this lol I didn’t read the synopsis (I never do) but I know I was not ready for an entire book where she was in Hell and she was being all grown and stuff. But now that I’ve read it, I can’t wait for the next book to come out!

Emilia is now the Queen of the Wicked and has traveled to the Seven Circles with Prince Wrath. She will do whatever it takes to find her sister. She can’t trust anyone, not the Wrath and definitely not Prince Pride. Emilia is going to be tested in different ways as well as doing shady things to gain artifacts to help find her sister. And when I say shady, I do mean shady…..

I’m sure it’s been said since it’s been out since the 5th, but careful with this one, it is not YA. It’s more NA. (And no I’m not censoring anything, just as a librarian, it’s things like this I need to know for reader’s advisories.) I headed into this not knowing and it was a bit of a surprise. I wasn’t upset by it at all tho. It’s the spiciest book she’s written and I can confirm since I’ve read all of them lol But the romance was done really well. It’s hard to sell me on Enemies to lovers, so when I liked this one, I knew something was going on. There was a spot in Chapter 17 that made me second guess this, where she was “influenced” to do some things, and it was a bit disturbing. I didn’t care for that at all.

This is more of a character based book, so I wasn’t shocked when Wrath and Emilia got the shine over the plot. Because that was all over the place. I can’t help but think it was a lot of the spicy happening over and over and the rest of everything was like so repetitive.

As someone who loves settings tho, I LOVED this aspect of the book. It’s the reason I gave it 4 stars. I loved seeing all the different realms. We only saw 3 of them, but what we did see was good. Not great or anything, and I definitely could have done with more, but it was good. (Although she is a bit info-dumpy in some ways with the descriptions. I’m sure if I was reading a physical copy that would have annoyed me, but since I was reading it via audio it wasn’t an issue for me since I had sped it up.

This was a book I was hella excited about, but things didn’t go as planned. There were some things I loved, but there were also some things I was hella disappointed in. I’m hoping things are better in Book 3 but that the spice is still there.

Overall, I give this