#The Last Hour Between Worlds

[mommybookwyrm]

The Last Hour Between Worlds | by: Melissa Caruso

Kembral Thorne is spending a few hours away from her newborn, and she’s determined to enjoy herself at this party no matter what. But when the guests start dropping dead, Kem has no choice but to get to work. She is a Hound, after all, and she can’t help picking up the scent of trouble.

She’s not the only one. Her professional and personal nemesis, notorious burglar Rika Nonesuch, is on the prowl. They quickly identify what’s causing the mayhem: a mysterious grandfather clock that sends them down an Echo every time it chimes. In each strange new layer of reality, time resets and a sinister figure appears to perform a blood-soaked ritual.

As Kem and Rika fall into increasingly macabre versions of their city, they’ll need to rely on their wits—and each other—to unravel the secret of the clock and save their home.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! One of my most favorite author's new book came out yesterday, and I got to go see her and get my copy signed!!!!!!

Melissa Caruso seriously deserves to be a bigger name, I can not fathom why she isn't.

30ish pages into this one, and I already don't want to put it down.

[cephalopod-celabrator]

To all my friends and followers asking why I'm making every post or conversation about discworld, it is just that it is Terry Pratchett and his brilliant novels' turn to occupy the "Obsession" hole in my brain. Although they've never been far from it. Just be grateful it wasn't like my Melissa Caruso books obsession where it was a fandom nobody had heard of so all the posts were utterly irrelevant to any reader except that one mutual- what? Melissa Caruso's coming out with a new book soon? Okay, yall are fucked. I feel no remorse and will never get better <3

[bookshelvesandtealeaves]

✨ BOOK REVIEW ✨

The Last Hour Between Worlds by Melissa Caruso

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

[instagram]

This was such a fascinating, intriguing plot. I’ve never seen a time loop story quite done this way and I was hooked.

It’s hard to really say much about this one without spoiling it. But I will say that the stakes increase with each loop and I genuinely didn’t know what to expect each time. I certainly didn’t know what to expect from the ending.

I LOVED the romance in this. Kem and Rika were so great together. The hatred, the sniping, the banter, the hurt feelings, the secrets, the longing. All of it was so perfect.

I’ve really been loving following older characters lately. I’m unsure how old these characters are meant to be but both Kembral and Rika are well established in their careers and Kem has a baby, so definitely older than I’m used to seeing in book sub picks, which was a nice surprise.

I will admit that I struggled to REALLY connect with Kem and I think that was down to the writing style. I really didn’t gel with it, to the point where I thought about giving up early on. I’m glad I stuck with it because I got used to the writing and the plot was absolutely gripping.

I do highly recommend this one if you’re looking for something high-stakes and a little different.

[gealach-in-a-misty-world]

Kembral Thorne is spending a few hours away from her newborn, and she's determined to enjoy the party no matter what. But when the guests start dropping dead, Kem has no choice but to get to work. She's a member of the Guild of Hounds, after all, and she can't help picking up the scent of trouble. She's not the only one. Her professional and personal nemesis, notorious burglar Rika Nonesuch, is on the prowl. They quickly identify what's causing the mayhem: a mysterious grandfather clock that sends them down an Echo every time it chimes. In each strange new layer of reality, time resets and a sinister figure appears to perform a blood-soaked ritual. As Kem and Rika fall into increasingly macabre versions of their city, they'll need to rely on their wits - and each other - to unravel the secret of the clock and save their city.

"Your life was always worth something, you insufferable fool."

Melissa Caruso's The Last Hour Between Worlds is an excellent magical mystery with a Groundhog Day twist, immaculate world-building, and a compelling relationship developing in a matter of hours. This first volume in a trilogy that promises to be explosive sets the scene for a story with clear stakes and memorable characters.

The main character and sole PoV, Kembral, is a great protagonist. On leave after giving birth to her daughter, she's quick to action and set on doing the right thing, even if it might mean not seeing her infant child again. She's a competent protagonist without being overpowered, even if she does have a special skill that sets her aside from the rest of her colleagues, but it's a learned skill, and she's not the only one to have it. Her dynamics with rival Guild member Rika are a delight, their shared past the real meat of the story, and Rika's an equally compelling character with secrets of her own. Their verbal sparring is fun and the way they set to work together a marvel.

This isn't a romantasy, the central mystery means they're on a clock, and the book balances that out pretty well. The supporting cast does a lot of heavy lifting, a number of colorful and interesting characters, each with their own voice and their own complex relationships. I especially loved the fiery swordswoman and her sibling, and I can't wait to see them explored more.

The worldbuilding is precise while not being overwhelming. It doesn't hand-feed the reader, but rather it allows to glean everything from context in a clear and concise manner. The Echoes, parallel universes of sorts, were especially interesting with their slighter differences the deeper one goes, and the Empyreans - functionally demigods - were appropriately eerie. The inner workings were clear if one is familiar with Faerie and fairy deals, spinning a familiar environment for the reader while doing something new with it. The Prime world had a lot of interesting dynamics and politics, too, which I can't wait to read more about.

The Last Hour Between Worlds is a delightful introduction to a new world.

✨ 4.5 stars

[You can find more of my reviews about queer speculative fiction on my blog MISTY WORLD]

[readinginmars]

"I had dreams about the look on your face when you were slipping away from Prime. Sure, I'd do that for anyone now, but I'd do it for anyone because of you. All those kids I've rescued were because I wanted to save you."

The Last Hour Between Worlds - Melissa Caruso

[aspeccharactersoftheday]

Kembral "Kem" Thorne from The Echo Archives is acespec!

[ash-and-books]

Rating: 4.5/5

Book Blurb:

A whip-smart adventure fantasy packed with reality-bending magic, and sapphic romance, The Last Hour Between Worlds is the brilliant launch of a new series from David Gemmell Award-nominated author Melissa Caruso.

In the Deep Echoes, no one can save you.

Star investigator Kembral Thorne has a few hours away from her newborn, and she just wants to relax and enjoy the year-turning party. But when people start dropping dead, she’s got to get to work. Especially when she finds that mysterious forces are plunging the whole party down through layers of reality and into nightmare.

One layer down: It's no big deal. Stay alert, and you’ll be fine.

Two, three layers down: Natural laws are negotiable, and things get very strange.

Four layers down: There are creatures with eyes in their teeth and walls that drip blood. Most people who fall this far never return.

Luckily, Kem isn’t most people. But as cosmic powers align and the hour grows late, she’ll have to work with her awfully compelling nemesis, notorious cat burglar Rika Nonesuch, for a chance to save her city—though not her night off.

For more from Melissa Caruso, check out:

Swords and Fire The Tethered Mage The Defiant Heir ​The Unbound Empire

Rooks and Ruin The Obsidian Tower The Quicksilver Court The Ivory Tomb

Review:

Two ex friends/potentially something more are forced to team up to solve a time warping/reality warping trapped time lock murder mystery in this fantastic first book in a series! Kembral Thorne is a star investigator who has finally decided to take some time off from her new baby and go and enjoy the year-turning party.... only it's not going to be as relaxing as she thought. When bodies start dropping and a mysterious forces/figures also start interfering Kembral has her work cut out for her. It doesn't help that the entire party has been dropped through layers of reality and she has to get them through them back to the original one. With nightmare inducing levels, with the laws of reality bending... and dark killer forces out there, Kembral will have to rely on the one person she doesn't want to to help her save everyone, her compelling nemesis, the cat burglar Rika Nonesuch, the one person she used to consider a friend and potentially something more until Rika betrayed her. Yet there is more to Rika's betrayal than Kembral could ever imagine and now they'll have to find a way to work together while healing from the heartbreak of the past... oh and find a way through this twisted reality warping murder mystery. This was such a fantastic and fun read, it combines mystery with a bit of magic and a touch of romance. ! The author builds such a fascinating world and the magic system was so unique and cool. It's so fun and really grabs you throughout the story. The story captures you from the start and really takes you along for the ride. I am so excited for the second book and can't wait to see what happens next with Kembral and Rika!

Release Date: November 19,2024

Publication/Blog: Ash and Books (ash-and-books.tumblr.com)

*Thanks Netgalley and Orbit Books | Orbit for sending me an arc in exchange for an honest review*

[anwhitebooks]

Everything I read, watched, listened to, or played in October 2024

November 5, 2024 Hello, book nerds! October felt like a long month for me, in a good way. Between multiple concerts and spending a lot of quality time with friends and family, it was an enjoyable and relaxing month. GLINT: Book 2 in the Plated Prisoner series. I’ll be doing a full review when I finish the series, but overall I felt pretty much the same about book 2 as I did for book 1. THE…

[wearethekat]

November Book Reviews: The Last Hour Between Worlds by Melissa Caruso

One of my anticipated new releases for this year. New mother Kembral Thorne leaves her newborn at home to attend a New Year's party—only to get sucked into a murderous and magical game between eldritch beings, where every time a mysterious clock tolls, the party drops down one layer of reality. Can Kembral work out what's happening and stop it, with only the help of a woman who once betrayed her?

This is a book with a complex setup—the increasingly dangerous and unstable layers of Echoes, Kembral's job as an all-around investigator and rescuer of people from Echoes, her complicated relationship with her not-ex who betrayed her. In practice, the plot itself is rather simple, with a series of time-loop like party sequences that only Kembral and Rika remember. It's lucky that they seem to be caught in a time loop, because the eldritch being game seems to score points via murdering people...

Kembral herself is an interesting character. Caruso doesn't let you forget at any point that she has a two week old baby, which is an interesting POV as mothers of young children seem to very rarely feature as the protagonist of SFF novels. Kembral's still early on in processing how she's going to manage a very physically dangerous, active career with the responsibility of single parent to a newborn. The other half of her characterization is her formerly spy vs spy dynamic with cat burglar Rika, which after the Incident has overtones of an acrimonious divorce. Over the course of the novel, we get flashbacks of what happened as the romance continues to develop.

A solid but not especially sparkling addition to Caruso's backlist.

[abookishidentity]

Books read and finished in March 2025

-The Mortal Word by Genevieve Cogman- 4/5 stars. So dragons are the order and the fae are chaotic. I say it's pretty chaotic that each time a dragon gets pissy they end up affecting the world they are in and end up damaging it. 

Someone: You will be given a fae representative 

Me: It’s going to be silver. 

Irene: It’s going to be Lord Silver. 

Lord Silver: Hello there everyone! It’s me! 

Me: Of course 

Irene: Fucking of course! It’s not like I have other bullshit to worry about! 

-The Secret Chapter by Genevieve Cogman- 3/5 stars. This one didn’t hit as much for me. Maybe I don’t really care for the heist trope? This one felt like a James Bond movie mixed with a heist movie. Perhaps I don’t heists because nothing goes to plan and I like plans sticking tight. I didn’t like that Irene woke up in Mr Nemo’s lair again in a bikini and a fucking collar. Fucking gross. It was badass of her that she could only use written language so she carved her arm up to get blood so she can write commands in the library language on the collar. Another thing that I didn’t like was that Indigo was portrayed as bad. Her motivations were justified to me. Dragons shouldn’t rule everything and shouldn’t control everything. 

-The Dark Archive by Genevieve Cogman- 5/5 stars. I loved this one. Best one in the series so far. I have a separate post for this one so I’m not going to go into detail here. 

-Machinehood by S.B Divya- 3/5 stars. Sometimes science fiction books feel very modern when you read them. The science fiction elements were interesting; they just felt like something we are currently seeing. This is the point of science fiction but I want to read things that I never read about. I know terrorism and terrorist groups aren’t supposed to make much sense with their ideals and such but the one in this book didn’t make sense to me. Also, I feel like the leader gave up too easily. I don’t know. At least it didn’t end with complete genocide. 

-Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom by Cory Doctorow- 3/5 stars. This was a short read. It’s always interesting when death doesn’t really exist anymore in the world. People can die, it's just they make backups of themselves and then that backup goes into a new body. People can essentially live forever that way but are they really themselves at that point? It really has a ship of theseus vibe to it. Anyway, the main character gets a little caught up in something and is essentially losing it. I wonder what would have happened if he just fucked his best friend named Dan and called it a day. It’s clear that these two men care for each other. It’s weird that when you essentially can live out several lifetimes, the age difference between people can become worse. Sure they may look the same age but one person could be a century older but in a different body. It’s fucking weird. Main character leaves Disney world with Dan at the end so at least there’s that. I wish we got more of the world aside from Disney World. I’m not sure if it was open like it is now and they were trying to make the park more tech heavy? 

-The Untold Story by Genevieve Cogman- 5/5 stars. This book was pretty good as well. I can respect a series for ending. Pretty decent ending. Or at least, a stopping point. I wouldn’t know where it would go from here as she has found out her parents, and how who was really controlling the library. Three powerful entities controlling everything through their library brands. I was quite shocked when Irene’s was burned off. But I guess it came back at the end? If she could say things in the language then I guess it was back? Anyway, I was convinced that Brandamant was her birth mother. I was wrong. I thought her being at the heart of the library was pretty cool. Like I said, a pretty good stopping point. A good series to read. I am really glad I read it. I love the relationship between Irene, Kai and Vale. They make a pretty good team. And they all care about each other. My last remaining thoughts are that its always entertaining when the chapter takes place in Kai’s perspective. He doesn’t have as much experience as Irene so his solving problem skills are different. It’s quite amusing to read when he is in charge. He is so broody and angsty with Irene. It’s quite nice when he is with different people. Hilarity ensues. Also another remaining thought is this: Do all the people who live in the worlds, who are not part of the fae or dragons, know there are many different worlds? I’m going to say no.I don’t really remember Vale’s introduction to all of it is.  

-Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman- 4/5 stars. This book is pretty good. There are a few lines here and there that made me think the book was written in 2016 or something. It makes Carl/the author sound homophobic or something. There are some problematic lines in this book but it’s not as prominent as other books I have read. This book reminds me of some aspects of The Hunger Games. The tv show aspect was not as annoying as I thought. It was Hunger Games like. This book is quite dark and haunting if you stop and think about it. Thinking about all the people who died, thinking about all the disenfranchised people who might have wandered into the dungeon by mistake, and thinking about all the people who lost their families in the dungeon. I would imagine it would not go easy on you if you were a small child or the elderly or disabled in any way. The book is quite detailed and it makes me think how long it took the author to come up with each thing. I didn’t realize this was a series until I hit half way through the book and they completed the first level. I am intrigued enough to keep going but the local libraries around me don’t have the whole series and I am not going to buy books unless I have to. Donut is amazing and the fact she was given the power of speech is great. Donut and Carl make a good team. Carl is going to have so much PTSD. The utter bullshit is real. 

-CyberMage by Saad Z. Hossain- 3/5 stars. This book had some cool story building. The stuff with the nanotech and AI gods running shit was cool. The main character was a 15-16 year old boy who was a hacker, was clearly spoiled by his parents, and hardly spent time outside of virtual reality. So naturally he is a bit insufferable and feels like he could be an incel. But I can’t completely hate him as he is 15-16 and he has time to grow. Besides I’m sure the events that happened to him in this book humbled him. Something that is weird is that he is emancipated from his parents and yet he still lived with them? He had a pygmy elephant which I found endearing. I hope it survived at the end. The only reason he started going to public school was because of a girl who didn’t even like him. And naturally the boy she had something with was a bully who would beat the main character up. It’s all fucked. The fat shaming of the main character was terribly annoying.  I’m just glad we also followed a different character who was a golem and chopped people’s heads off. That was much more interesting. 

-The Madness of Angels by Kate Griffin- 4/5 stars. Ahh another urban fantasy series I want to read and yet the rest of the books aren’t at the library. Oh well. This is a pretty great book. Kind of long though. Should have been like 100 pages less. Anyway, Matthew Swift is an interesting urban fantasy protagonist. For a good while I had no idea what he was and the book wasn’t exactly giving me the answers. He is a sorcerer but he has the “blue electric angels” living inside him. That’s pretty damn interesting. First book plus a resurrection means we don’t know for sure if he is acting like himself or it was the angels. He sometimes says “We” and sometimes he says “I” I guess it really depends on who’s talking. The electric angels make him sound quite innocent and naive about the world. Almost childish in a way. Anyway, this book is about revenge and he gets his revenge. Although I hate that a woman is mentioned throughout the book, we get some backstory of her and the main character and then she is fucking killed. I feel there might be hypocrisy in this book. Matthew is like “how dare you want to call the electric angels” and yet he called them when he was dying? Also did it take them two years for resurrect him or did the woman who died live for two years, decided that everything is bullshit and then resurrected him? He seems pretty pissed that he was resurrected. Anyway, despite all that, the book was pretty damn great. It was quite descriptive and flowery with its language which I was actually into. 

-The Last Hour Between Worlds by Melissa Caruso- 4.5/5 stars. This book was pretty damn great. I love the time loop aspect of it all. It must be pretty traumatizing to see people die in every loop and then seeing them again alive in the next one. The main character is pretty cool and so is her love interest. The main character can side step which is pretty fucking neat. It’s basically going into an in between place while everything else is frozen and popping up where she needs to go. I think I read something like that in an urban fantasy book. The main reason she learned side stepped is that she was constantly trying to find her childhood friend. That whole thing is amazing especially when there is a reveal about it. Interesting first book of a series. Her life before this book sounded quite interesting. But it’s pretty fascinating how much she takes her life seriously because she has a baby. This book has an interesting world and interesting characters. Sort of reminds me of The Invisible Library world. Overall a pretty great book.

[aroaessidhe]

2024 reads / storygraph

The Last Hour Between Worlds

fantasy locked room murder mystery

set in a world with alternate universes that bleed into it that get increasingly more eldritch as they go down, following a woman able to step between them

she’s on leave to take care of her newborn, but decides to attend a new years’ party to give herself a short break to socialise

but when everyone is murdered - only to suddenly be alive again, but with the whole building shifted one echo down, she realises she’s caught in a dangerous looping game and will have to find a way to stop them from dying permanently…. with the help of her rival slash almost-ex

very lightly demi-coded bi MC, f/f

[middleofrow]

Book Review: The Last Hour Between Worlds by Melissa Caruso

Continue reading Book Review: The Last Hour Between Worlds by Melissa Caruso

[cephalopod-celabrator]

I am once again begging you people to read Melissa Caruso. She just recently started a new series with the book The Last Hour Between Worlds and it's so good. Please. She writes queer people and really good fantasy plots. Time loops, living superweapons, the psychology of immortality, body horror, talking cats, the works. Pleeaaasseee.

[abigailspinach]

“He had so much reach on me—ridiculous, decadent amounts of reach, between that enormous black sword and his greater height—and he knew how to use it. As I came rushing in low and fast, he took a leisurely step back, then another, flicking lightning-fast cuts at my hands, my face, my shoulder. I barely parried most of them, taking a light kiss of a cut along my cheekbone and a slightly deeper one on the outside of my arm. He didn’t let me close, maintaining his distance with those liquid backward paces and the indisputable argument of his steel. He kept me right in the worst possible place to be: the small and terrible zone where I was within his reach and he was outside mine, so he could strike at me at will but no amount of skill or effort would let me hit him. It was an absolutely disastrous opening for a swordfight; the advantage was entirely his, and it was all I could do not to get cut to ribbons. But I didn’t care about hitting him. I cared about moving him toward that door. And the distance between him and the exit was vanishing with every taunting backward step he took. He started to circle, sliding to the side, and I couldn’t allow that. Time to change tactics.”

— The Last Hour Between Worlds (The Echo Archives Book 1) by Melissa Caruso

[nzbookwyrm]

November 2024

[readinginmars]

"So many people underestimate you if you're kind. They don't understand that kindness is a sign of strength."

The Last Hour Between Worlds - Melissa Caruso