Thanks to the folks at Orbit and Hachette Audio for my early copies of "The Last Hour Between Worlds" by Melissa Caruso (out 19 November 2024).

Kembral Thorne always brings the dog back. One of the best Hounds in the city she has a 100% retrieval record for pull people (and dogs) out of the Echoes. Echoes being the different layers of reality, some are a little bit different than ours, just a tad more magic. Just after too many things get wildly dangerous and can make your brain melt. But Kembral is on leave and tonight is the year-turning ball. Her newborn daughter is with her sister and she has the night off to enjoy. Just the guests include a politician who is threatening her, dear friends who might cause a scene or a duel, and a professional associate who something might have happened with (if damn Rika Nonesuch hadn't drugged her and stashed her under a pile of trash!). Fun times. At least until everyone starts dying.

Narrated by Moira Quirk, always a pleasure to hear you have a cast to play with. Real good job on the creepy kid.

Reasons to read:
-Copper and Thief dynamic
-Time loop similar to All You Need is Kill
-Great secondary characters
-Antagonists who are smart and make contingency plans
-The indomitable human spirit in the face of jerky divinity

Cons:
-Hey that is a rather unsettling being as old as time

✨🕰️ ARC REVIEW 🕰️✨

The Last Hour Between Worlds by Melissa Caruso
4.5/5 ⭐
Audio Pub Date 🇺🇸: Nov 19th

Well, Melissa Caruso, I hope you are happy with yourself - as soon as I was finished with this book I ran to @illumicrate to buy the special edition and spent way to much money. This books was amazing!

The book follows a new mom as she attends a party and dallies with people from her old life. Strange happening begin when she cuts herself on a clock and realizes leaving the party might not be as easy as she thought.

Please read if you like the following:
⌛ Groundhog Day type scenarios
⌛ Entering magical echos where the world gets weirder and weirder
⌛ Sapphic romance
⌛ Cool swordfight choreography where the main character blinks in and out of existence 😱

Thank you to NetGalley and Orbit for providing this advanced review copy!

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Parece que este es mi año de libros con misteriosos asesinatos en habitación cerrada y un toque de viaje en tiempo, pero desde luego si me tienen tan entretenida como The Last Hour Between Worlds, no tengo derecho a quejarme.


Melissa Caruso tiene ya varias trilogías publicadas, pero por lo que sea nunca me había puesto con algún libro suyo. Así que cuando vi que se publicaba esta novela, que la verdad tenía buena pinta y tuve la oportunidad de acceder al audiolibro, no hubo más impedimentos para ponerme con ella.

La protagonista del libro es Kembral Thorne, una investigadora en un reino mágico de fantasía que está de baja maternal. Es su primera noche fuera, tras dejar a su bebé a cargo de su hermana durante unas horas para asistir a una fiesta de cotillón que se presume divertida, pero que acabará siendo un carrusel de asesinatos. Es una premisa muy interesante, pero si a esto le añadimos la capacidad de Thorne para saltar a nuevas capas de la realidad llamadas Ecos en las que pululan extrañas criaturas, la novela promete.

En primer lugar me gustaría destacar y mucho el hecho de que Kembral sea una madre primeriza reciente, con todo lo que ello conlleva. La falta de sueño, las presiones sociales por saber cuándo se volverá a incorporar al trabajo si es que lo hace, la dualidad entre ser madre y seguir siendo mujer… Me he sentido extremadamente identificada con la protagonista, incluso cuando está deseando volver a ver a su hija aunque solo sea por darle de mamar y descansar un poco de la presión de la leche en su pecho. En este sentido la novela es tremendamente realista, aunque en los demás pues siga siendo una obra fantástica muy entretenida.

En el transcurso de la fiesta Kembral descubre que todos los asistentes forman parte de un juego macabro que llevan a cabo las entidades más poderosas del mundo mágico para nombrar el año que está por llegar, lo que a su vez se aúna con las intrigas más mundanas de los gremios humanos para luchar por algo más de poder e influencia. El hecho de que el mundo a su vez se vaya desgajando en ecos más y más alejados de la realidad y por lo tanto más peligrosos, no hace si no añadir más picante e interés a la narración. Si te dejas llevar por el ritmo endiablado de los saltos entre realidades, disfrutarás muchísimo con el libro.

A este disfrute también contribuye la espléndida narración de Moira Quirk, que personifica a cada invitado a la reunión de una forma individualizada y perfectamente reconocible.

Por buscarle alguna pega al libro, que ya digo que es entretenidísimo, quizá sobren algunos de los planos de realidad en los que se va sumergiendo Kembral, porque se supone que más de 4 niveles de profundidad ya es de locos y ella sigue y sigue bajando hasta conseguir su objetivo. Además de algunas casualidades bastante bien traídas y convenientes para la subtrama romántica del libro, que tiene representación bisexual para nada forzada y muy creíble. Quizá suene un poco repetitivo lo cansada que está por no dormir pero es que puedo garantizar que cuando no duermes cuidando a tus hijos es algo que no se te quita de la cabeza.

Creo que podría haber funcionado perfectamente con una novela única, pero se anuncia como la primera de una saga porque la construcción de mundo es tan atractiva que dar para mucho más. No tengo duda de que leeré las siguientes entregas.

A fun fantasy romp through multiple levels of reality. New mother and agent attends a NYE party and gets roped into saving pretty much everyone there even though she is still on maternity leave. It’s full of snappy dialogue and increasingly dangerous situations that require her, a hound, to team up with her arch nemesis, a cat. While fantasy isn’t my go-to genre, I quite enjoyed this one, probably because it has a bit of a mystery at its heart.
Publication date is Nov. 19, 2024.
My thanks to the author, publisher, producer, and #NetGalley for early access to the audiobook for review purposes.

In The Last Hour Between Worlds by Melissa Caruso, the first book in the Echo Archives, we follow our main character, Kembrel Thorne. Kembrel is attending a new years party and spending a precious few hours away from her newborn for the first time. Kembrel is on maternity leave from her job, a job she loves, as a member of the Guild of Hounds. But, now people at the party are beginning to die, and Kembrel knows she has to investigate to prevent something catastrophic from happening. When the clock begins to chime, they are sent into an echo timeline and the party resets and begins to repeat. Kembrel and her nemesis, Rika, have to work together and depend on each other to solve the mystery and return them all to the Prime timeline - without either of them dying! This is a well done fantasy mystery, it's sapphic and clever and I gave it 4.25 stars. I had the audio version and loved the narration. Thank you to Net Galley #netgalley and Hachette Audio for my advance listener copy. This book is out on November 19th.

I really enjoyed this book. Right from the beginning I was hooked by how different yet familiar it felt. The story is kind of Groundhog Day-like but totally different at the same time.
The story follows a woman who is a Hound. The Hound’s are special investigators and pretty cool operatives. There are also people called Cats. They’re more like spies and sneaky.
The woman is a brand new mother, which I love because it’s so rare to hear stories with actual accounts of motherhood. She is at a party and people keep trying to get her to work because she’s go good at her job. She keeps telling them no, and she’s on leave. But then something wild happens and she is thrown into a job because the whole party keeps happening over and over.
There are these things called echos that seem like mischievous entities with ulterior motives. Kind of like fairies or demons.
The story feels unique and it also has a really cute love story woven in. It’s a love/hate relationship and it’s great!
I highly recommend this book. Also the narrator did a really great job with the voice variations.

3.5 stars. There's a time loop, multilayered realities, guilds with members who have varying magical abilities (casting illusions, pausing time), and terrifyingly powerful immortal beings. The main character, Kembrall, is a brand-new (and single) mom at a New Year's Eve party where all of the above factors combine to result in a high-stakes contest that Kembrall must disrupt or face catastrophic consequences to her own reality. The only person who can aid her in this is her longtime rival–turned love interest–turned betrayer, Rika.

I'm surprised I didn't love this when it has all these Doctor Who x Jasper Fforde vibes. It was enjoyable enough to read; it just didn't grab me more for some reason.

Kem is a single mom and Hound – an investigator n the Prime reality. Kem finally gets a day off from mom duties to attend party for Dona Marjorie. Unfortunately, this party I also the site of a competition for those from the Echo land. The Empyreans from Echo use the humans at the party as playing pieces for their game, as they drop into Echo. Then the entire party resets and the game starts all over. And the only human aware of this is Kem.

So while Kem was hoping for a relaxing night, she’s got to take on investigator duties and stop the Empyreans. And while Kem wants to charge in and take action, she is also aware of the danger she’d be putting herself in – and she’s got to protect herself for her child.

I dd have to stop this audiobook once to attend a work event, but as soon as I got back to my car I turned it back on. Oh, so good. You know I love a strong FMC, and that is exactly what Kem is. I can’t wait for more Kem adventures.

Go get it, you’ll fall in love with Kem same as I did! RECOMMEND
Thank you #NetGalley for the complimentary copy of #TheLastHourBetweenWorlds in exchange for an honest review.

This book wastes no time jumping right into the story. There isn’t a ton of world building which was exciting at times (kept you on your toes) but frustrating at other times. The only thing I realllllllllly know is that the FMC is a new mom. And I really know she’s a new mom lol. But overall an exciting, fun read

A very fast paced fantasy.  A new mother still on maternity leave must team up with her rival to defeat higher powers. I got a Day After Tomorrow vibe where things get darker and more sinister.  A very enjoyable listen. The narrator makes you feel like you are right in the room with the characters. Thank you to Hachette audio and Orbit books for the ARC.

4 stars

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.

Plus, hello, Moira Quirk narrates the audiobook.

4.5 stars! Thank you to NetGalley and Hachette Audio for this advanced copy! You can pick up The Last Hour Between Worlds on November 19, 2024.

This book might have the most unique world and magic system I've read all year. The concept of the Echoes, Emperyans, the Moon and Void, blink-stepping -- I could go on about all the cool and badass ways Melissa Caruso wielded magic and science in this story. There was a fantastic blend of politicking, high-stakes, murder mystery, and sapphic yearning between Kembral, our MC, and her nemesis/ex Rika.

The slow-burn second-chance romance between Kembral and Rika was expertly done. I was fully invested in their history, and the way they grew closer once again while battling deadly beings was immaculate. This book goes right for the feels, and I'll eat it up every single time.

The action scenes in this story are also some of the best I've ever read. Kembral was CONSTANTLY putting that sword to use, and her years training to blink-step clearly paid off. I've never been so impressed yet found a protagonist so relatable -- her feats weren't inhuman, but were in fact flawed, and though a recent pregnancy changed Kembral's body and her relationship with it, she grew to see it as an adjustment rather than a weakness.

All in all, a super solid fantasy with incredible time-traveling, world-hopping magic and intense character work.