By Kerri Maniscalco. Pub date: 10/27/2020
Five Stars! ***** Best enjoyed on a fall day when you’re not too hungry or thirsty–there are a lot of super delicious food references in this one, along with some seriously hot love interest moments.
Emilia and her twin sister Vittoria work in their family’s restaurant in a village located on the coast of Sicily. They are also witches, called strenghe, who live secretly amongst the superstitious populace of their home, carefully avoiding suspicion and the witch hunters that may follow it. Emilia is content in her place in the restaurant’s kitchens where her family creates some of the best loved dishes in the village. That is until she stumbles across her twin sister’s desecrated body in the basement of the local Catholic church, her heart viciously removed from her body. All contentment disappears as vengeance begins to take hold of her heart. In her search for her sister’s killer, she invokes some forbidden magic, accidentally summoning Wrath, one of the very Princes of Hell and part of the court of the Kingdom of the Wicked that she has been warned against since she was a child. However, Wrath, despite being pissed that she has entrapped him, is more than willing to help her. As they delve deeper into the mystery of her sister’s death, it seems that Vittoria was not the first witch whose heart has been stolen, and Emilia may be the next target. That is, if Wrath doesn’t steal her heart first.
I loved the setting of this book. It’s not often that a YA is written that sets itself in a Mediterranean country, and just hearing “seaside village in Sicily” invoked visions of weathered brick buildings and cool blue waters. It was the perfectly contrasting backdrop for a dark mystery with a tense, delicious romance. Maniscalco is truly an artist when it comes to building three-dimensional characters with truly deep emotions and motivation for revenge as well as grief, loss, betrayal, and love. I could practically feel the heat coming from my kindle in some scenes and found myself gripping the edges during others.
A mark of a truly good book is how lost you can get in what is happening. When I finally came up for air, I was shivering in my hammock and it was practically morning. That should alone should drill home how good I thought this was, and I am so excited for this October!
Thank you to Netgalley and Little Brown for the advanced copy in exchange for this review ❤
Always Lost in Words 