Worlds Unlike Our Own

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Synopsis

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My Thoughts

Emilia has only just learnt that her sister Vittoria is still alive, but before she can come to terms with it and all that it implies, there is an assassination in House Greed, a high ranking member of the court, and the evidence points to Vittoria as the culprit. With a new mystery on her hands, Emilia sets out to uncover her sister’s plans even as tensions brew between the different factions in the Seven Circles.

💭 Initial Thoughts: Having read Kingdom of the Cursed over a year ago, I had pretty much forgotten the finer details of the plot beyond the jaw dropping revelation of Vittoria still being alive. Kingdom of the Feared dived straight into things which was a bit annoying for me as I was hoping for a bit of a recap.

🌎 Plot, World building & Atmosphere: As far as plot goes, there were some extremely interesting twists and plenty of shocking revelations and I loved the direction the story took in this book. It was great to step back into this world and explore not only the courts of the various Princes but also learn, at last, how the pieces of the puzzle come together.

✍🏻 Writing & Narration: I enjoyed the author’s narration style, and it made this book quite difficult to put down. On the downside however, between the investigation and figuring out how to break the curses, there was quite a lot going on, and I don’t think the author did the best job of balancing everything. For the initial part of the book, the search for the murderer took precedence as Emilia tried to find a way to prove Vittoria’s innocence. But soon after, the subject of curses came to the forefront, and pretty much took over, with Emilia remembering the first plotline only when it was convenient – much like what happened in book two. Additionally, this book was nearly 500 pages long but it definitely needed either more plot or more depth – so much of it felt like filler – and in this aspect, Kingdom of the Feared fell a little short for me compared to the previous instalments.

👥 Characters: I’ve enjoyed Emilia’s character arc right from the beginning, and this book takes it to a whole new level. All this time, she was a mortal witch on a quest for vengeance in the realm of demons, but a handful of revelations changed the landscape completely, and Emilia, I thought, rose to the occasion magnificently, adapting to the new normal of her life despite having to accept some heartbreaking truths.

Wrath on the other hand, while still an amazing character, felt very much secondary in this finale. He was always around, supporting Emilia, but he didn’t do much on his own, not with regards to the investigation, nor with the breaking of the curse, and I’m still kind of disappointed about it because he was my favorite character even over Emilia until now. We did get to see quite a lot of the other princes of hell, and I absolutely loved their interactions – it was the one thing I was really hoping for from this book, so I’m quite happy about that.

🎬 Ending: All the plotting and politics, twists and turns, built up the tension beautifully, and I was fully expecting things to end with some sort of epic battle. Instead, there was not much action, and while the ending made sense, it didn’t feel worthy of that build up. Vittoria’s plotline also fizzled out disappointingly – she was portrayed as a major villain for the first half of the book with big plans for the Seven Circles, but it amounted to nothing in the end, also making the whole vampires and werewolves alliances essentially moot.

Despite all that, I’m rather impressed actually, that the author managed to bring things to a realistic conclusion and have a happily ever after all the same. The loose ends were all tied together neatly, and every question I’ve had bouncing around in my head since book one was satisfactorily answered. It did leave a few things unresolved or open ended, such as what Claudia might choose to do, but perhaps that means we’ll get a spin off?

❓ Final Thoughts & Recommendation: The one major thing that comes to mind that I have to mention is that with the addition of Kingdom of the Feared to this series, there is absolutely no way this should be considered a YA series anymore. Kingdom of the Wicked itself didn’t feel like YA, but this book should certainly be in the NA category, along with the whole series. Categorization aside, this series has been a fun read and Kingdom of the Feared was a fitting finale. Overall, I’ve enjoyed this series and would definitely recommend it!

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Other reviews in this series:

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