The Last Soul Among Wolves is everything I loved about The Last Hour Between Worlds: the sharp humor, the aching sapphic tension, the mind-bending magic systems. But it has expanded upon these themes in delicious ways.
The second entry in the Echo Archives series throws Kembral Thorne straight from maternity leave into a another locked-room mystery brimming with nostalgia, betrayal, and reality-warping danger. It’s Agatha Christie with multiple realities, and the risks are even higher.
All Kembral Thorne wants is to finish her maternity leave in peace. But when her best friend drags her to a will reading at a decrepit island mansion – along with her once-rival, now-girlfriend Rika Nonesuch – she finds an unexpected reunion of her childhood crew . . . and a deadly curse she must now unravel.
To save her friends, Kem and Rika must once more race against the clock and descend into other realities. But the mansion is full of old secrets and new schemes, and soon the game becomes far more dangerous than they could ever have imagined.
At the heart of this is Kem and Rika’s growing relationship. Once fueled by rivalry, now it has become solidified through love, sarcasm, and shared trauma. Caruso does an amazing job balancing their electrifying dynamic of humor and vulnerability. Every glance and argument between them carries emotional history, and I love how they balance each other. Kembral carries a heroic torch that often leaves herself burned, but now she has Rika, who acts as a sharp counterbalance, not necessarily as a logical viewpoint, but because she so desperately needs to keep Kem safe.
The mystery itself is tightly wound, dripping with gothic atmosphere and impossible architecture. Caruso’s use of reality manipulation remains one of the most creative spins on multiverse fantasy I’ve read. I’d honestly just love a lore book to accompany this series. The Echoes are incredibly fascinating.
If The Last Hour Between Worlds was the spark, The Last Soul Among Wolves is the wildfire. It’s sharper, funnier, and far more dangerous, with emotional stakes that cut right to the bone.
I need the third book now… desperately.