Maniscalco is taking her reveals and tossing them as far into the future as she can. We have experienced no wedding, no, er, consummation, and we only meet the “devil”-Pride, who Emilia signs her life away to in the first novel–in the final fourth of Kingdom of the Cursed.

We did not learn what the curse is in Kingdom of the Cursed. We didn’t see the Kingdom of the Wicked in the first book, titled Kingdom of the Wicked. Her skin flushes she screams she lashes -is the most beautiful aspect of the book. The reader rarely forgets her wrathy motivations, which usually manifest physically as well as in Emilia’s inner monologue. Maniscalco writes Emilia’s anger vividly and faithfully. When we do get a moment alone with Emilia when she’s not horny over Wrath, the book gets significantly more unique. This fact–and the grounding of Emilia’s character in the murder of her twin in book one-keeps her immanently likeable and kind of awesome. Constantly scheming, constantly testing the same ideas the reader is considering, Emilia makes mostly smart choices and never lets the plot get ahead of her. EMILIA HOLMESĭespite Wrath’s unhelpfulness-and the general unhelpfulness of literally everyone she comes across-Emilia unravels the mystery of the Kingdom of the Wicked with admirable agency. This injects some real growth into Wrath’s character, which is otherwise just a) hot b) whipped for Emilia and c) convienetly cursed to the point where he is unable to provide Emilia with any kind of helpful information. This is near to the first time when Wrath does something objectively wrong-something that couldn’t be defended, say, by a dual-POV or a miscommunication. The incident involves Wrath essentially removing Emilia’s free will. This, however, is explained after the incident. He’s training her for the ball (a feast, but, well, good enough-there are masks and everything, we can check off this trope too) when his princely brothers will try to use their powers upon Emilia for their own amusement.

The two leads execute this hot-and-bothered dance extremely well, but for one strange scene that involves Wrath using his powers upon Emilia. It’s a classic let’s look intimidating and evil together in front of my court, Rhysand-Feyre stylesituation. It’s a classic we’re engaged but just for convenience but also secretly like it situation. It’s a classic they’re stuck in close quarters in the cold in an igloo with one room where they can’t wear clothes and must share body heat situation. It’s a classic they really really like each other but can’t admit itsituation. It’s a classic they can’t have sex but very much want to situation.

Kingdom of cursed