The humor of Gideon the Ninth meets Inception-like layers of reality-bending - not to mention some classic sapphic pining between rivals - in this exciting new series opener from Melissa Caruso. With dashes of irreverent humor, a well-grounded main character, and a uniquely complicated/nonsense world with its own wiggly and interesting rules, we’ve got a lovely self-contained mystery story (or maybe deadly trials? There’s a bit of both here) but a universe that can hold much more. This book definitely stands on its own which I can appreciate since book two is obviously not currently available.

Kembral is a very good main character: she’s implacable, she has a very good reason to not want to be involved in things, she has an equally good reason to fight tooth and nail to get herself out of things intact, she’s competent in a no-nonsense way (which invites imagination from Rika and other characters, which may or may not take our dear Kembral by surprise), and she’s got a cool party trick.

I also really liked the structure of the repeating party and moving deeper through layers of unreality as things become increasingly tense and also increasingly nonsensical. The rules don’t apply the farther you get from reality, and that keeps even a “repetitive” plot from ever getting boring.

I had a really great time with this! The world set up and magic system was really interesting. I liked the way there are divisions in society, but not by social class.

The romance subplot was also alright. It wasn’t my favorite, but I did think the arc of it throughout the story was interesting and definitely added something throughout. Something about it was a little bit off, but I can’t actually figure out what it is.

Overall, this was a pretty strong start to a series. I’m interested to see what the next book is, since the end is relatively open-ended.

Thank you to Orbit and Netgalley for the advanced copy of this book!

Kembral Thorne, a new mom, goes to a new year’s eve party to spend a few hours having fun when weird things start happening and she gets sucked back into her work as a Hound.

This is locked room mystery where every hour for 12 hours the clock resets and the whole party falls through another layer of reality that gets increasingly more strange.

Things I loved:
- new mom representation
- excellent world building
- super fast paced
- very sweet romance

Thank you NetGalley and Orbit for the advanced reader copy.

This was an incredibly interesting read for me, and although the beginning started out a little bit slow and I needed a little bit of time to fully get into it, once the action picked up it was difficult to put down. I also do think this could be an incredibly empowering book for readers who are mothers because the main character is strong, she’s driven, she’s good at her job and she also just had a baby. And part of the initial focus was her conflict in trying to decide whether or not she was going back to work eventually or if she would do something more low-key now that she has a child she’s responsible for. I think it is a brilliant book for emphasizing that no matter what route anyone would choose to go in that situation picking the one that is right for them and write for their family is always a good choice.

Overall, I did really enjoy this book and I look forward to reading the sequel whenever it comes out.

The Last Hour Between Worlds is a twisty futuristic take on a locked-room mystery that I absolutely adored. When an end of year celebration devolves into a mass murder, Kembral Thorne takes us down level by level of reality, layers called Echoes, to try to get at the heart of what’s happening. Her Official Nemesis, Rika Nonsuch, is on her heels and is willing to put professional woes aside to help Kembral root out the reason for the killings, and help her survive the increasingly unsettling Echoes they find themselves in.

The best way to experience this book is to let it take you on the ride. Caruso does a very good job orienting you with all the characters, and I do think this book leans more sci-fi in the way it expends you to be willing to nod and go along with technology and worldbuilding. Some of it is very goofy (all the Guilds being named after animals did have me affectionately rolling my eyes) but the world gels together very well.

Kembral is an interesting main character who exists in several dichotomies of our world (driven career woman and new mother) that her society sees no issue with, and she’s so earnest and forthright so it is interesting to see how she moves through the world. I found it very easy to get attached to her.

If you’re a fan of time loops or wish that Nolan’s Inception had gotten weirder with it, you’ll have a great time with this book.
Thank you Orbit and NetGalley for the eARC.

I'm ready for book two right now! This is an impressively rendered locked-room fantasy that takes place over a single evening. Yes, I said locked-room fantasy. I don't know if that's a real subgenre, as I've never experienced it before, but this entire story takes place at a party in a house that keeps dropping through layers of reality, with lots of violence, murders, and mayhem. I really enjoyed the two main characters, Kem and Rika, who have a coworkers-to-enemies-to-lovers vibe going on, and the book felt fresh and fun. It's a little light on the world-building, but that didn't bother me with all the plot twists and turns to keep me occupied. I'm curious to see where Caruso will go with the story in her next book. Thank you to NetGalley and Orbit Books for a digital review copy.

Really enjoyable read. I loved the idea of echoes, of the way the various guilds were set up, of the political intrigue and the naming of the year. I also enjoyed having a new mother as the main character and the sapphic love story.

The only two qualms I had were first, I wanted to know a LOT more about the world, which I assume I’ll learn in subsequent sequels, and two, this got very repetitive. I don’t even mean the time loop part—that was fun! But rather, the number of times the main character mentioned that she was tired or debating going back to work or out of shape, when just once or two could do; the number of times characters described the creation of emperyeans, when just once would have done, the number of times the main character and Rika hashed out various elements of their conflict before the final resolution of it. I didn’t mind the hour repeating over and over, but those characters weren’t having their memories wiped and so it really didn’t make sense for them to continue to say the same things over and over.

Super fun and fast-paced time loop adventure!

Content warnings include: death, violence, injury; Mentions of: abduction, torture, child abandonment, breakup.

This was a lot of fun. I enjoyed thee worldbuilding centered mostly around a city in which guilds and richt city-elders rule, combined with alternate reality shenanigans. The most prominent guilds for the books are the Hounds (police/investigators/security) and Cats (spies/assassins/burglars), though there are also Ravens (scholars/librarians/academics), Wolves (mercenaries) and Butterflies (entertainers).

Kembral, the protagonist, is a Hound, but as she just recently gave birth and is caring for her newborn, she is on leave. So when, on her first night out since the birth, things go sideways, she is not pleased...

The city is also called Prime, and there are several layers of "Echos" beneath it, mirror realities that get stranger and more magical the further down you go. As a Hound, Kembral specialises in Echo related investigtions, and is particularly skilled in that area. And of course, this is also how the time loop comes in...

Time loop isn't technically what is happening here, but it comes close enough, and I really enjoyed it. It's very fast paced so it's never repetetive, even though we see the same few hours (feels much faster than that) play out over and over again. The book also starts right in, getting into the thick of it much fast than I thought it would.

I also really enjoyed the characters. Kembral was a great protagonist, she's the workaholic sort who shoulders any responsibility and risk more than readily enough and doesn't accept anyone (but herself) getting harmed. She is upstanding and honest, and as such the complete opposite of Rika, her erstwhile friendly rival, a cunning and competent Cat who's path she crossed a lot professionally. But they had a recent falling out, the details of which the reader is not readily given at the start.
While these are the main ones, I also really enjoyed the side characters: Dona Marjorie, the hostess, Jayce, Kembral's best friend, Dona Vandelle and Dona Harkin, two politicans, Blair, a Raven, and Pearson, a colleague of Kembrals, as well as many more!

The mysteries are unveiled slowly, both of the character- and plot-relevant sort. I think this will be a lot of fun to rereading in a while, when knowing all the details of what things that happen in the first loop mean, when the book only reveals the details way later. I also have to admit that some details I found not all that easy to follow across each loop, and even in retrospect I am a bit confused how things worked. That did not impede my reading enjoyment though.

There is a sapphic romantic subplot that is both subtle and not. Not subtle because it's pretty obvious there is something going on, even when we have no idea how the characters are gonna get there in the beginning. But also subtle because it's not that overly romantic, partially maybe because Kembral is asexual. It was subtle representation, which I enjoyed a lot!

Overall great read, that works on its own but also clearly already plants some plot hooks for more books to come.

I received an ARC and reviewed honestly and voluntarily.

Hmm, at the beginning of this I thought it might be a new favourite, and I did really love the writing and the characters. However, it felt overlong and repetitive. The world building was very cool - maybe a LITTLE bit too vague for me, but it's absolutely intentional.

A great spooky season read, and I think this would be perfect for so many readers! I'm really excited to read more from Melissa Caruso!

The Last Hour Between Worlds immediately caught my attention with its unique premise of a high-society ball spiraling through different realities. The world-building is intricate and wonderfully imaginative, blending fantasy and surrealism into a rich, otherworldly atmosphere. I haven't come across anything quite like this before, and I’m thrilled that this is just the start of a series.

What I really loved was how the book didn’t explain everything. It leaves a lot to the imagination, which gives it that mysterious, otherworldly feeling. It might frustrate readers who like everything spelled out, but I personally enjoyed lingering in that dreamlike space. Exploring the echoes outside the mansion was easily my favorite part. Each one was so unique and weird in the best way, and I kept wanting more. The middle did feel a bit repetitive as they moved through different echoes, but overall, I stayed entertained.

I also appreciated that this book doesn’t end on a cliffhanger, even though it’s part of a series. You could totally stop here and feel satisfied, but I’m definitely curious enough to continue. Also, I have to give a shout-out to the fact that the main character, Kembral, feels older (who I interpreted to be in her 30s) and is a new mom. It’s not something you see much in fantasy, and I liked how her motherhood was important but didn’t take over her entire character.

The romance in this book is subtle and doesn’t steal the spotlight. If you’re looking for something steamy, this won’t be for you, but I liked that it stayed in the background, allowing the focus to remain on the plot and world.

This really was a cool, unique read. I would’ve loved to dive deeper into the echoes and relics, but the world and characters kept me hooked, and I’m excited to see what happens next!

3.75 stars!

Thank you to Melissa Caruso and Orbit Books for an ARC in exchange for my full, honest review!

Man, this was a fun start to a series that I have a feeling is going to get a lot better as it continues. The Last Hour Between Worlds is a trippy, fast-[aced sci-fi/fantasy meets murder mystery meets sapphic romance that's really doing its best to do all that at once. It's doing well in a lot of ways but I found it a little lacking in depth, especially considering the breadth of its world-building, but sometimes that's excusable in a first book.

First, the good stuff. It's undeniably a fun idea and I always fall pretty head over heels for any time-bendy plots. Each iteration of the ball was creative even if the description kind of drifted off towards the end. I liked Kem and Rika, and I think their relationship is interesting and believable even though a lot of it is just told to us. There were some really excellent moments of drama or climax and I felt pretty engaged throughout the whole book, even through the fight scenes which I don't really enjoy.

Now, the stuff that didn't work for me. There's a lot of world-building and it is not explained very well. It very much comes off as a hodge-podge of a bunch of different ideas the author had for world-building and just shoved in one story, as opposed to a single cohesive system in which elements have clear relation to one another, so a lot of questions go unanswered. What is the purpose of the guilds? How are they connected to each other? How are they connected to the city elder? What gives the city elders definitive power if the guilds are the ones with magic? Are the layers of reality only under one city or under the whole world? I assume some of these questions will be answered in later books but usually you do a lot of world-building in the first book and let the reader fully focus on the plot later once you've already established the background. I also think that the plot was just so crowded that a lot of information just got lost, which makes the twists pretty uninteresting. It feels strangely like a standalone, enough that I'm not sure all the questions I have about the world are worth continuing the series to find out.

Ultimately, I enjoyed this book and it has a lot of good ideas going on but there's just too much going on to really settle into the world and let the characters find their rhythm. I'll be interested to see if the second book continues with the same characters or with others in the same world. I think this is absolutely worth your time but it didn't totally scratch that itch for me.

Happy reading!

A groundhog day like fantasy featuring a single mom to a new born as our heroine.

There's a lot to like about this book; the portrayal of a new mom and her internal struggle between career and home for one. Melissa Caruso does an excellent job of portraying those conflicting feelings of wanting to be with your child, while also wanting a break to have your own life, but missing your child when you do.

The overarching plot was also interesting; a deadly game of higher power players where time resets, but is quickly running out. How do you win if you don't remember you're playing?

Unfortunately I wasn't fully able to get into the story. It was bogged down with info dumping in an attempt to set up this world. There were too many groups and too many rules that weren't always fully explained (Echos are apparently people and places and I'm still not sure how they're made). There were also rules that seemed a bit vague, i.e. not being able to talk about being an echo, but talking about the echo game and the whole "three times I declare it" works, but you never have to actually say it 3x? By the time the conclusion came around I was tired of the repetitive nature of the time loop and didn't much care who won.

The Last Hour Between Worlds

When disaster strikes at a party ringing in the new year, Kembral Thorne is thrust into an extra-dimensional power struggle that could have consequences across all layers of reality. Fortunately, fending off threats from Echoes of the prime reality is part of her job as a Hound, and Kem is one of the best. Unfortunately, she is very much still on maternity leave and asking for help is not on the table, especially when her best hope is Rika Nonesuch. Rika can’t be trusted: she’s a Cat, and the last time they tried to work together ended with Kem heartbroken, thwarted, and under a pile of garbage. This time, however, it doesn’t seem like Kem has much choice in the matter. As the party descended into more and more dangerous layers of reality, Kem and Rika must work together to not only save the party goers but possibly determine the fate of reality itself. If their rivalry transforms into something a little more complex along the way- well, there’s nothing Kem can do about that.

Really liked this one! Great as a standalone and series starter- I get so annoyed when books aren’t complete stories on their own, I like series that are able to tell a full story in each book but leave some enticing threads for the next one to pick up on, and Caruso does a great job of this. I don’t feel like I’m missing out on anything by this being a series starter and I’m also invested in what Kem and Rika get up to next.

World building isn’t the most thoroughly sketched out, but I found it to be sparse in a thoughtful way that supported the story. For the most part, we’re in one room at a party through different layers of reality. With this confined setting Caruso is able to slowly drip in world details in a way that felt natural without leaving me completely confused by what was going on in the world. Alternate realities sounds SF, but this story definitely leans more towards the fantasy side of SFF. I could see someone not liking this if you don’t enjoy just rolling with world building, but I had fun I liked the time loop elements and I loved Rika and Kem’s building chemistry. I read Kem as biromantic asexual and Caruso incorporated her identity into her past and current relationships in a natural way.

I saw folks commenting online that they weren’t interested in reading because Kem was a new mother which was a bit odd to me? It didn’t seem like it was coming from a place of fear of pregnancy, which was understandable, but from thinking mothers couldn’t be interesting? Kem’s motherhood is one part of her character, not all of it, and her recently having given birth played into themes of her learning how to stand up for her own needs and provided some tension-increasing physical limitations as tried to do all these world saving shenanigans so soon after a major medical event. I found Kem trying to untangle the knot of her own needs, the needs of the folks around her, and her desire to be there for her daughter really compelling. Also- side note here- gender affirming care works, folks! I used to have a lot of intense fear/dysphoria just reading about pregnancy and childbirth that might have kept me from reading this book, but the care I’ve gotten (both mentally and physically) has gotten me to a place where I was just able to read and feel for Kem without wanting to crawl out of my skin. Also, there’s a non-binary side character, Blair, who is very much who I’d write as my protagonist. More Blair, please. Love them.

TLDR; fun, contained, time-loop through alternate realities while the main character starts to fall for her rival. I was very let down by Midnight Strikes, another bloody timeloop fantasy read, and the Last Hour Between Worlds gave me a lot of what I’d wanted from that book, but also sapphic, so no complaints there!

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this eARC in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

Thank you to NetGalley/Orbit for the e-arc!

Let me make one thing clear: this book is Really Cool. It's like Glass Onion plus fantasy Inception in a neat little time loop with a nice dose of sapphic yearning on top. The concept for the world and plot is just Cool, Man. Nothing was so inventive that it blew my mind, but it was put together in a way that kept me entertained. Part of that was due to the main character, Kembral, not having an overly-serious tone as she tells her story. She keeps things relatively light despite what she's experiencing and has a sense of self-awareness in her narration. Some people might not like that, but I did. Except when she was a bit too repetitive about being a new mom. I liked her and Rika's dynamic too, but some of the side characters felt a little like they were built to serve a purpose.

Repetition is actually one of my main complaints about the story. I think the author did a good job of keeping each loop fresh, but there's only so much that can be done when the whole point of time loops is to do the same thing again, you know? The ending does a good job of being satisfying enough to not need to read the rest of the series while also teeing up nicely for a sequel. This book might not stick with me forever, but it sure was fun.

I’d heard this book compared to This is How You Lose the Time War, but I think that comparison was made purely because this is a sapphic time-travel-adjacent rivals-to-lovers story. Where TIHYLTTW is more lyrical and poetic, The Last Hour Between Worlds is much more classic genre fiction and features first-person narration that is compulsively readable though less literary.

I enjoyed myself right from the get-go with this book, and found it very easy to get quickly invested in the plot. I don’t know that my interest in the characters went particularly deep or will be particularly lasting, but I certainly enjoyed the story while reading it.

The rivals-to-lovers aspect of this story was resolved with relatively little drama but I still enjoyed the character dynamics. A lot of time is dedicated to discussing Kem’s recent motherhood despite the fact that we never actually meet her baby, but this felt reasonable given the locked-room setting of the story. The world building isn’t particularly present, which did leave me with a fair number of questions, but I think the author did a pretty good job of setting the atmosphere.

This book didn’t stick the landing as much as I’d hoped, although my issues with it are relatively minor. There was a minor side-plot that seemed to want to discuss the issue of violent revolution/tearing the system down versus working within the system to reform it. There was very little time to dedicate to that discussion, but what was shown felt a bit lacking in nuance, and seemed to communicate that working within the system is the obvious morally correct answer. Since there wasn’t really time in the story to address this issue in any particularly meaningful way, I’m not really sure why it was included at all. Another minor gripe I have with this book is at the very end, it tried to preview the dangers that the rest of the series will address a bit too obviously and repetitively for my taste. It reminded me of some cheesy tv season finales, but it happened 4 or 5 times. Neither of these are significant complaints, but they both came at the very end of the book, which left me feeling a bit less positively toward it than I would have otherwise.



Regardless, I did have fun with this read and will definitely keep an eye out for the sequel.

I loved this book. The main characters were so fun and the adversaries were super cool and a little creepy. The idea of echoes and echo worlds was really unique. This was action packed and clever and a lot of fun all around.

The only thing I’d like to see more of was the world building on the Prime. I was curious about how things worked in the “real world” but I think we’ll get more of that in books to come. I can’t wait to read the second one.

The Last Hour Between Worlds follows our female protagonist Kembral Thorne, who is on maternity leave from her job as being the best Hound in the business. Hounds are essentially the super cool police of this world, having the ability to blink step (teleport via shifting in and out of layers of reality) and experience with diving into Echos. There are 12 layers of Echoes and the deeper you go, the weirder things get. On the eve of the new year, Kembral decides to take a little break and attend an extravagant party hosted by several colorful society members (friends, foes, and mysterious love interest) but things take a turn and Kembral is forced to come out of her hiatus to save the world.

The premise of the book is super interesting and I was looking forward to reading about a FMC who was a new mom but I didn’t find myself enjoying reading this a whole lot. I found I had to force myself to stop asking “why” and go with the flow a lot, hoping that the pieces of the physics of this universe would eventually make sense but they never really did. Perhaps that was the point however, to emphasize the chaos of the layers of echoes, but as someone who needs a strong plot to really get me absorbed, I felt like I was lost most of the time.

Kembral being a new mom didn’t add a ton to her character and I didn’t really feel the tension that was supposed to be building between her and the female love interest. There were a few snips of dialogue and inner monologue that made me chuckle but I didn’t feel like anything else really stuck out. I also didn’t know it was going to be a Groundhog Day kind of story - each chapter was almost exactly the same: half full of character banter with the occasional emotional slip or deep/mysterious revelation followed by a quick rush of an action-y fight scene that really made you question if Kembral was as out of shape as she said she was (being a new mom and all).

If you’re someone who enjoys a pretty fast paced, don’t-think-too-much-just-go-with-it kind of read I think you’d find this quite fun! Sadly it wasn’t for me!

Thank you so much to NetGalley for the ARC and the chance to write this review!

There are things this story really has going for it, I just feel that I'm not the target audience for it. It's a fun read, for sure, and if it was a movie I'd probably really enjoy it, but it never really captured me enough to keep committing to it. I think the concept might work better as a short story or novella, because the full-length novel version was already feeling stretched out by about the 20-30% mark, in my opinion.

However, that said, I think you'll really enjoy this if you like stories that get weird without much direct explanation and drop you right in. If time loops and alternate realities are your jam, you should definitely check it out. Those were this story's main strengths. I think the distance I felt from this story can really be chalked up to the writing style, which was leaning on telling versus showing, and a lack of connection to the characters. I sort of felt like this story could really be happening to anyone; there wasn't much that made me feel like this is definitely Kem's story aside from being in her POV.

Thanks to Orbit and Netgalley for the ARC. All opinions are my own.

While I'm all for diversity of protagonists, there is a LOT of baby talk in the opening to this book-- a man not understanding the demands of a newborn who needs it explicitly explained to him in conversation, the main character both feeling absent from the normal world yet missing her newborn too much to want to re-assimilate.

I definitely think this can be done in a way that I still find entertaining (take Nestlings for example), I just don't think this author's writing is for me. Combined with the subject matter and world-building that's more hand-wavey than detailed, this just isn't my kind of story.


“My spare time.” I rubbed my forehead. “You’re not a father, are you.”
“No, no.” He seemed alarmed at the thought. “A bit damp, babies. And loud, I’m told. Not really my area of expertise.”
“All right then, let me explain to you in four small words.” I raised four fingers and then folded them down, one after another. “I. Am. On. Leave.”

I thought I would like this book more than I did - a sapphic time loop story by an author whose previous trilogies I really enjoyed, what’s not to like? Perhaps my expectations were too high, or I was thrown off by it being a fantasy time loop versus a sci fi time loop.

What I liked: I did get invested in the plot after about 40% and wanted to know how things ended.

What I didn’t like:
The world building is light at best and hints at interesting concepts but often just makes no sense. I found the classification of professions as animal names and the bits about zodiac (or “moons”) pretty silly. I would have loved more exploration of the Echoes and their monsters instead.

The book is more invested in the plot than in fully fleshing out its characters, which is generally fine with me - except in this case, Kembral’s whole character is “mother with a newborn.” As someone with zero interest in reading about babies, motherhood, and pregnancy, this made her so boring to me.

Will I read the sequel? Most likely, yes, but it’s not highly anticipated.