Recommendations

Books Like Kingdom of the Wicked

A Sicilian girl summons a demon to catch her sister's killer — and discovers the murders are only the beginning

Kerri Maniscalco's Kingdom of the Wicked opens in 1888 Sicily, where Emilia di Carlo's twin sister is murdered in a way that no human being could have committed. Emilia summons a demon for help — specifically Wrath, one of the Seven Princes of Hell — and discovers that the murders are connected to something larger than her sister's death. The series combines gothic atmosphere, enemies-to-lovers romance, and supernatural mystery, set against a richly rendered 1888 Sicily. If the atmosphere, the dark romance between Emilia and Wrath, and the demon-prince antagonist-turned-ally dynamic gripped you, these eight picks go to the same place.

  1. 1

    The Folk of the Air

    by Holly Black

    A mortal girl in a world of beautiful, dangerous beings who are also her enemies — Holly Black and Kerri Maniscalco write the same kind of enemies-to-lovers romance: a heroine who is smarter than her circumstances, in a world where the most dangerous person in it has complicated reasons for helping her.

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  2. 2

    A Court of Thorns and Roses

    by Sarah J. Maas

    A mortal girl taken to a world of immortal fae where the rules are made by beings who see her as prey — ACOTAR and Kingdom of the Wicked share an atmosphere of beautiful danger and a heroine who survives by being more than her captors expected.

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  3. 3

    An Ember in the Ashes

    by Sabaa Tahir

    A Roman-inspired world where a girl from the oppressed class goes undercover in the empire's most brutal institution — Tahir has Maniscalco's same gift for a world where everything is dangerous and beautiful at the same time, and a slow-burn romance between two people who should be enemies.

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  4. 4

    Caraval

    by Stephanie Garber

    A magical game where the world is a theater and nothing can be trusted — Garber's atmospheric theatrical deception and Maniscalco's supernatural Sicily are both worlds where the aesthetic is doing as much work as the plot, and both feature heroines who have to outmaneuver everyone around them.

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  5. 5

    Daughter of Smoke and Bone

    by Laini Taylor

    A girl who lives between the demon world and the human world, in a Prague that is as atmospheric as Maniscalco's Sicily — Taylor has Maniscalco's same sense of a world where horror and beauty are inseparable, and the same willingness to let the romance between two beings from incompatible worlds be genuinely impossible.

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  6. 6

    Stalking Jack the Ripper

    by Kerri Maniscalco

    Maniscalco's own Victorian forensic mystery series — Audrey Rose Wadsworth investigates crimes in 1888 London alongside a brilliant and complicated young man. Completely different world from Kingdom of the Wicked but the same gothic atmosphere and the same slow-burn romance between a sharp heroine and a sharp antagonist.

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  7. 7

    City of Bones

    by Cassandra Clare

    A girl discovers that the shadow world of demons and Shadowhunters has always been there — Clare's Shadowhunter world has Kingdom of the Wicked's same sense of a supernatural world hidden inside ordinary life, and the same investment in found family dynamics inside that world.

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  8. 8

    Hush, Hush

    by Becca Fitzpatrick

    A fallen angel who shouldn't feel anything falls for the girl he was supposed to destroy — Fitzpatrick has Maniscalco's same dark paranormal romance tone and the same sense of a supernatural being whose feelings for the protagonist complicate a mission they were supposed to carry out without complications.

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