Kingdom of the Wicked

What's inside (8 sections)

1. Twins, the restaurant, and the night everything breaks
2. A circle of blood and bone, and Wrath shows up
3. Hunting through Palermo with a demon at my elbow
4. Food, family lies, and magic that bites
5. Houses, brothers, and blades in the dark
6. The last hundred pages and the bargain I did not see coming
7. Key takeaways
8. FAQ

I picked up Kingdom of the Wicked because a friend kept talking about the food. She said, you will want pasta after every chapter, and also you will be scared to walk home. That sounded like a strange combo, and it is exactly what this book is. Kerri Maniscalco published it in 2020 with Jimmy Patterson Books, 384 pages in hardcover, and it opens her Kingdom of the Wicked series. It is a witch story set in 19th century Palermo, Sicily, with a murder mystery at the center and a demon prince who will not leave the kitchen table, so to speak.

Emilia Di Carlo and her twin Vittoria are streghe, witches hiding among humans. Their family runs a busy restaurant, the Sea and Vine, where the girls help cook and serve. At home their Nonna tells stories about the Malvagi, the Wicked, seven princes of Hell to be feared and never summoned. Each brother rules a House: Wrath, Greed, Gluttony, Lust, Envy, Sloth, and Pride. Emilia is the careful one. She follows recipes. She wears her little horn amulet for protection. Vittoria is bolder, louder, always pushing to use more magic than the family allows.

One night Vittoria misses dinner service. That never happens. Emilia goes looking and finds her sister dead. It is brutal. Her heart has been cut out. Soon Emilia learns other local girls, all young witches, have been found the same way. The grief in those early chapters felt real to me because Maniscalco stays with small things. Emilia keeps setting out two cups. Their parents shut down. Nonna starts locking doors and burning herbs and refusing to answer straight questions.

Police call it animal attacks or a madman. Emilia knows better. She steals Vittoria's diary and finds notes about summoning, about circles and bones and names Emilia was told never to speak. Vittoria had been messing with forbidden magic before she died. Emilia, who has always been afraid of that kind of spellwork, decides she will do it anyway to get answers. If no one else will hunt the killer, she will. Even if it means calling on Hell.

Twins, the restaurant, and the night everything breaks

The opening third lives in the restaurant and the apartment above it, and I mean that as praise. You can smell garlic and lemon and fried dough. Emilia describes kneading bread the way her mother taught her, salting pasta water, tasting sauce for balance. Regulars argue. Boys from the neighborhood hang around. Antonio, who has grown up with the twins and works nearby, clearly adores Emilia in that awkward teenage way, bringing her oranges, lingering after close.

That warmth makes the murder hit harder. Maniscalco does not rush past it. The funeral, the whispers in church, the way customers stop meeting Emilia's eyes. The family tries to keep cooking because that is what they know, but orders burn and tempers snap. Nonna, who used to be funny and sharp, turns secretive. She hides books. She warns Emilia to stop asking about the dead girls. She says the old stories are true and leaves it there, which of course makes Emilia ask more.

What I liked here is how ordinary witchcraft feels. Spells are tied to cooking and sewing and little objects. A charm stitched into a hem. Salt thrown a certain way. A prayer to the goddess of witches, La Prima, the first witch who legend says chained the demons long ago. Emilia can do small magic, finding lost things, sensing lies, calming a burn. Vittoria was stronger and less patient with limits. They teased, they covered for each other, they fought about boys and dresses.

If you want fast demons from page ten, this part may feel slow. I did not mind because the dread builds. Girls missing. A strange man seen near the docks. A symbol carved where a body was found. Emilia starts carrying a knife in her skirt. She stops sleeping. Then she reads the last pages of Vittoria's diary and understands her sister was trying to summon one of the princes on purpose.

A circle of blood and bone, and Wrath shows up

Emilia's decision to summon is not brave in a clean way. It is messy and angry. She waits until the house sleeps. She draws a circle, gathers offerings, speaks words she half understands from a stolen page. She expects power. What she gets is a furious man in her circle calling her careless.

Wrath, prince of House Wrath, is tall and scarred and covered in tattoos that shift with his mood. He wears daggers like other men wear watches. He is rude from the first minute. He tells Emilia she pronounced things wrong, used the wrong bone, insulted his intelligence by thinking she could command him. He also does not leave. Because of how she summoned him, with her blood spilled in anger and grief, they are tied. He cannot simply walk away, and she cannot simply banish him.

Their first scenes together are mostly arguments in whispers so her family will not hear. Emilia wants him to name Vittoria's killer. Wrath says he does not know, which she does not believe. He says he is on the island for his own reasons, hunting the same killer on orders from Hell, and that his brothers are also loose in Sicily looking for something that was stolen. Emilia thinks that is convenient. Wrath thinks Emilia is a child playing with fire.

I laughed more than I expected here. Wrath hates the Sicilian heat. He hates Emilia's cooking at first, then steals bites when he thinks she is not looking. Emilia hates his smug calm, then uses it, asking him to explain demon Houses and summoning rules. He answers in riddles half the time.

Under the jokes the bargain takes shape. Wrath will help her find the killer if she helps him find what his House lost. In return she owes him time, blood, favors. Emilia agrees because she sees no other path. Every spell she casts to trace a murder leaves her shaky, nose bleeding, hungry in a way food does not fix. Wrath warns her the price grows. She ignores him, as I probably would too if someone killed my sister.

Hunting through Palermo with a demon at my elbow

The middle of the book is investigation, and it moves street by street. Emilia questions the families of the dead girls. She visits a convent laundry, a market stall, a fortune teller's cramped room. She compares wounds, dates, moon phases. She learns all the victims were witches who had dabbled in summoning. Someone is killing girls who call on demons, then taking their hearts.

Wrath follows, invisible to most people or glamoured as a tall sailor no one questions twice. He points out things Emilia misses. That dagger mark means Greed. That ash means a summoning failed. Emilia resents needing him and keeps asking anyway.

Antonio complicates things. He loves Emilia and wants to protect her the normal human way, by walking her home and telling her to stay inside. He is also part of a brotherhood of local men who hunt demons with blades, sons of men who lost people to witch panic years back. Emilia likes Antonio, truly, but she starts seeing him as a door closing. He wants a wife who stays safe. She wants answers even if answers are dangerous. He is not a villain. He is just seventeen and out of his depth.

Domenico, another boy near the restaurant, and a few older women add texture. A midwife who knows the old goddess stories. A shopkeeper who sells Emilia sulfur and then pretends not to know her. Emilia collects details in a notebook: time of death, missing jewelry, a strange cold spot. Some leads go nowhere. That felt honest.

A fair criticism: this section repeats. Emilia sneaks out, finds a clue, Wrath withholds the meaning, they argue, she sneaks out again. After the third time I wanted to shake him. I get why Maniscalco holds back. The princes are bound by rules about truth and bargains. Still, a few conversations circle the same ground. If you like slow procedural hunting it works. If you want romance or battles, you may skim here.

Food, family lies, and magic that bites

What sets this book apart from other demon romance books is how much time it spends on family and food. Emilia cooks when she grieves. She makes broth when she cannot sleep. She burns honey cakes because she is thinking about circles instead of ovens. Cooking is how Emilia connects to her mother and Nonna, and cooking is also spellwork. When her magic starts changing after meeting Wrath, it shows first in the kitchen. Milk curdles. Sugar tastes like ash.

Her family hides plenty. Nonna finally admits witches once made a bargain to chain the princes, and that the chains are weakening. Emilia's mother cries when Emilia asks about La Prima. Her father sharpens knives and says nothing. Emilia feels betrayed, and I understood both sides. The adults survived by staying quiet. Emilia survives by refusing quiet. Neither approach looks great when girls keep dying.

Magic has costs here, and the book is clear about them. Small spells need focus and leave Emilia tired. Bigger summonings need blood, personal objects, true names. Demon bargains need something equal in return. Emilia trades memories, time, promises. She tries to cheat by wording things cleverly, and Wrath, who has centuries of practice with wording, calls her out every time. One bargain to save Antonio from a demon attack goes sideways in a way that made my stomach drop. She gets what she asked for, not what she wanted. That lesson repeats.

I should note the heat level. This is young adult with romantic tension, not explicit romance. There is longing, hand holding that feels huge, Wrath standing too close in a narrow hallway. They share a bed once out of necessity while hiding, and it is all charged glances and rules about blankets. If you like slow burn bickering that turns into trust, you will have fun.

Another honest complaint: Emilia makes choices that frustrated me. She lies to people trying to help. She walks alone into places she knows are unsafe. Teen grief explains it, but twice I put the book down and muttered, do not go in there. I forgave it because fear and guilt drive her, not stupidity.

Houses, brothers, and blades in the dark

Slowly Wrath explains more about his kind. The seven princes each rule a House tied to a sin, but the books treat those sins more like hungers than cartoon evil. Greed collects debts. Lust feeds on secrets. Envy wants what others hold. Pride, the eldest and most feared, pulls strings. Wrath himself is about vengeance and battle, quick to anger, bound by a strange code of honor.

They are stuck. Someone stole an object of power from Hell, and without it the princes cannot return. That is why they walk Palermo in human shape, hunting each other as much as hunting the killer. Each brother suspects another of theft and murder. Their talks about this are some of the best parts, because Wrath is honest about demon nature in a way humans in the book are not honest about witch history.

The brotherhood of human hunters adds danger from the other side. Antonio and his friends carry daggers marked with House signs they barely understand. They think killing a demon will end the murders. Emilia tries to warn them they are lighting matches near oil. One night raid in the tunnels under the city goes badly. Blood, shouting, a prince laughing in the dark. Emilia has to choose between saving Antonio with demon help, which exposes her, or letting him die to protect her secret. She chooses, and it costs her standing with both sides. I found those chapters tense because no choice was clean.

Emilia's own power grows in ways that scare her. She can call objects to her hand. She hears heartbeats too loudly. She dreams of a dark haired woman who may be La Prima. Wrath watches with worry he hides with insults. He starts training her a little, how to stand, how to hold a blade, how to say no to a prince.

If romantasy with politics bores you, know the politics stay simple here. This is not a court book with maps and councils. It is streets, kitchens, churches, caves. The stakes are personal: who killed Vittoria, who kills next, what Wrath truly wants. That focus helped me, though readers who love big world systems may find Hell thin in this first volume.

The last hundred pages and the bargain I did not see coming

I will keep the ending broad so you can feel it yourself. Emilia finally gets face to face with the killer, and it is not a stranger. The motive ties back to summoning, to hearts as fuel, to a prince who promised desperate girls power and took everything. Emilia has to use everything Wrath taught her plus kitchen witch basics she learned as a child. Salt, iron, true names, Triangle of Art rules about containment. The fight is ugly and close. She gets hurt. Wrath gets hurt, which shocked me because I had started thinking he could not be hurt.

Then comes the twist about Vittoria. I guessed part of it and still felt sick when it landed. Emilia learns her sister made choices Emilia never imagined, choices involving Pride and promises and lies told out of love and ambition mixed together. Emilia has to rethink every memory of the last year. Which laughs were real. Which fights mattered.

The final bargain undid me a little. To save her family and stop the immediate bloodshed, Emilia offers Wrath what no one should offer a prince. Her soul, her future, herself as his bride. He accepts, but the way Maniscalco writes it is not triumphant. It is quiet. Contracts signed in blood. A mark on skin. Emilia returns home changed, colder, more powerful, grieving in a new way.

After I closed it I sat with two feelings. I admired how complete Emilia's arc felt for book one, from rule follower to rule breaker who understands price. I also felt the cliffhanger itch hard. This does not end cleanly. It ends with a wedding debt owed, a sister's fate uncertain, a murderer answered but a larger theft unsolved, and Wrath waiting. You will need book two, Kingdom of the Cursed, right away. I started it the same night.

Who should read it? If you like witchy historical fantasy with murder stakes, bickering slow burn, and lots of Italian food writing, try it. If you loved the early court intrigue of Sarah J. Maas but want demons instead of faeries, or if you liked the forensic grief of Maniscalco's Stalking Jack the Ripper books and want more romance, this fits. If you hate love triangles, good news: Antonio fades as a rival fast. If you hate cliffhangers or heroines who hide things, maybe borrow before you buy. If you need standalone endings, skip for now.

For me the good outweighed the draggy middle. Palermo felt damp and holy and rotten all at once. Emilia's voice stayed human, angry, hungry, funny about small things even while hunting. Wrath earned his name and also earned the softer moments, guarding her door, remembering how she takes coffee, telling her the truth when a lie would be easier. I came for pasta and stayed for a prince who does dishes badly and tells terrible jokes while cleaning blood off a blade. That is a specific kind of charm, and this book has it.

FAQ

When was Kingdom of the Wicked published?

It was published on October 27, 2020 by Jimmy Patterson Books. The hardcover runs 384 pages.

Is Kingdom of the Wicked part of a series?

Yes, it is book one in the Kingdom of the Wicked series, followed by Kingdom of the Cursed.

Who are the main characters?

Twin witches Emilia and Vittoria Di Carlo, the demon prince Wrath, and their neighbor Antonio.