Book Review: Kingdom of the Cursed

I loved Kingdom of the Wicked, the first in the trilogy by Kerri Maniscalco, but I loooooved Kingdom of the Cursed!

*Spoilers for Kingdom of the Wicked ahead!*

The book picks up where Kingdom of the Wicked left off. Emilia has decided to enter a deal with Pride so she can hopefully find out who was behind the murder of her sister, Vittoria.

Wrath takes Emilia to the Seven Circles and isn’t too happy that she has decided to sign a deal with Pride and “end” her bond with him and her betrothal even though she only accidentally bound them together for eternity when she summoned him. Before she goes to Pride’s circle, she is a guest of House Wrath though and he’s not in a rush to send her off to his brother.

Emilia adjusts to life at House Wrath pretty quickly and soon she is training every night with Wrath so his brothers cannot take advantage of her through their vices. For example, she has to learn to not give in to greedy thoughts and allow Greed to control her and she has to learn to keep envious thoughts under control so that Envy can’t make her do things she wouldn’t normally do, etc.

While Emilia trains, she also does research in the library and asks a lot of questions of the people in House Wrath to try to find information about the infamous curse on Pride (that no one can quite remember all the details of or are cursed to not be able to say anything to her) and about the First Witch (same things apply here where people either can’t remember all of the details of the stories or are unable to reveal information due to the curse).

Emilia will do anything to find out who was behind her sister’s murder, but she also can’t help the growing feelings and attraction she has for Wrath. Should she forget about her deal with Pride and continue on with the marriage bond with Wrath? Will she ever learn the truth about the curse and what happened to her sister?

I absolutely loved this book! It was so good. It was the perfect mix of fantasy, mystery, and romance. The spice level seriously kicked up in this book! While there were hints of steam in book 1 it definitely leaned more YA. This one was definitely in NA territory and it was so good. The imagery that Maniscalco paints int his book was even richer than book 1. The food, the gowns that Emilia wore every day. Chef’s kiss!

I started that last book last night and I’m already loving it as well! I don’t want this series to be over!

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