<i>Since this is the third book of a series, don‘t read this review before reading the previous two books. While it remains spoiler-free for book three, I am adressing plot points of the previous books.</i>

Ever since I devoured <i>Kingdom of the Cursed</i>, the second book of the trilogy, I've been impatiently waiting for this installement and all the wickedness it promised. I mean after <i>that</i> ending of the previous book? It‘s a mystery how I stayed alive this long. So once I had the third book in my hand, I felt like the world could stop because I had everything I needed right there. It also couldn't have come out at a better timing, because I was feeling a reading slump creeping up on me, and I knew <i>Kingdom of the Feared</i> would prevent that. Or so I thought.

Because the truth is, <i>Kingdom of the Feared</i> turned out to be a massive disappointment, and became the reason of me getting into a reading slump.

The story picks up right where the last book left off, and the tension between Wrath and Emilia was carefully built further - to my delight. I was screaming, spamming friends with texts, and enjoying every bit of the first third of the book. In fact, I was devouring every scene that occured between Wrath and Emilia just as much as I was enjoying all the interactions between her and the other characters. After the reveal of the second book, I was also very curious to see the development of the relationship between Emilia and Vittoria, and eager to find out all the truth behind her faked murder. However, this is where the story started to lose me.

Every reveal and explanation revolving the major plot points in the previous books such as Vittoria‘s death, the truth about Emilia‘s powers, the curse of Wrath, and the whole history of the Wicked and Feared felt like they were pulled out of nowhere. Now, this could partially be blamed on me not remembering every single detail from the previous books (after all, it‘s been a year since I‘ve read KotC and two since I‘ve read KotW), but I don‘t really believe I was expected to do a reread before going in this installement. In fact, I don‘t even believe it would‘ve changed anything about it because I simply didn‘t like any of the reveals and explanations. After all that investigating, after all that talk about how the demons are prevented of speaking, too many reveals just seemed to be dropped in Emilia‘s lap in a matter of „Hey, this is what you are. This is what this is. And this is our problem.“ I didn‘t feel like Emilia was really doing lots of work in figuring out everything. She just found out, and moved to the next problem. Most of the issues were resolved pretty quickly, and the solutions came in pretty easily. I stopped really caring about Emilia‘s journey, and the fact that her whole character development was more told than shown, made me tire of her as a character pretty quickly. If you play around with the memory loss trope, then I expect some work to go into retrieving those. But we didn‘t get any of that. One second, nothing made sense, the next we were to trust that Emilia knew of everything. There was no conflict the characters saved which made me root for them, nor was there any moment where I was able to reflect on their struggles and feel for them. 

Even Wrath's and Emilia's relationship became less intriguing. After all that build up between them in the previous book, this book discarded that energy rather quickly. For the most part, Wrath didn't even play a significant role in the plot. And whenever we did get a scene or two between them, it was mostly reduced to sex. And let me tell you, I'm not opposed to that. Gimme all the smut you can. But if that's the only thing that connects a pairing, you'll find me quickly tiring of them.

In retrospective, the plot was never the strongest aspect of this series for me. In fact, it was the characters, their struggles, their scheming and the intrigues that made me obsess over these books. Wrath and Emilia had an excellent build-up, filled with so much tension, but aside of them, I just truly enjoyed every single character in this book for what they stood for. I guess which is why I loved <i>Kingdom of the Cursed</i> so much. All those interactions between the characters, the tension between Wrath and Emilia, the character-driven story pulled me into that book and left me aching for more. As <i>Kingdom of the Feared</i> tried to focus more on the plot and answering all the questions that were posed in the previous two books, a lot of the character development was lost to favor telling the readers the truth about everything. If those reveals had any shocking or emotional impact, I wouldn‘t have minded that one bit. But alas, we got a messy and complicated plot that didn‘t make much sense, and a neglect of the characters.

To say I‘m sad <i>Kingdom of the Feared</i> turned out to be a disappointment would be an understatement. I really wanted to love this book, to obsess over it, and to ache for a rereading. Instead, it put me in a slump, and I was happy once I reached the final page. However, I do want to add that depending on your own expectations, your experience could differ from mine. After all, the issues I had were very personal. Mostly coming from a place of disliking where the story was heading and how the conflicts were solved.