The Last Hour Between Worlds

By Melissa Caruso

Book Overview

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

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 031630347X
• ISBN13: 9780316303477
• Release Date: November 2024
• Publisher: Orbit
• Length: 432 Pages
• Weight: 0.90 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 5.4" x 8.2"

Customer Reviews

Your next TBR

If you're a fan of wit like Gideon the Ninth or writing like V.E.Schwab, just buy this book already! World building is top notch, characters are 10/10, story 100% original, and such a fun read!

Fun but scary world

The concept of this book quite intrigued me with the echoes and how if your mind wanders, you might slip down into them, lost unless a hound (like Kembral) comes looking for you. And how it gets weirder and weirder the farther you fall (like things with eyes in their teeth!). So I was very eager to get into this story, which does not take long at all for a steep dive into the odd and dangerous but also a bit whimsical. Definitely a party not to go to! I would say it is a bit of a locked room mystery since they are all stuck in the manor and Kembral is trying to figure out how to keep everyone from being murdered (though there are few forays into the echoes for needed cures and such). And a time limit that does repeat but things get so much worse each reset and deeper drop into the echoes! Good thing Kembral is really good at her job as a hound and can blink step so easily, plus all the experience in various levels of the echoes. With all that went on, the bits with Rika and Kembral were sweet. They were able to work through their issues and actually have some good come out of all the murder. I liked their working together to come up with solutions and fight off the immortal beings that lived before the creation and so cannot die and have awesomely horrible powers. I hope that we can get more info on them in the next book! This one does have a ending that solves the current issue but it definitely needs another book for recording what is going to happen in the newly named year! Plus more visits to the echoes (but only after Kembral finally gets to rest and take care of her daughter). The narrator did a great job in making the characters and world come to life and I would like to thank NetGalley and the publisher for giving me the chance to listen to this fun book.