The Last Hour Between Worlds might just be the perfect New Years read; it’s almost cozy, it’s fantasy, it’s got a touch of romance, it takes place during a New Year’s Eve party, the characters are pretty interesting, the world is interesting, and it’s mostly just a fun read. The Last Hour Between Worlds features a new mom at a New Year’s Eve party trying to relax her totally exhausted self, but she gets pulled into trouble that happens to fit her profession (but she’s on leave). Kembral Thorne is a Hound, which basically means she’s an investigator police-type in a world where there a primary reality (Prime) and then eleven alternates (called Echoes) layered below, and the farther down you go, the less stable and real the world becomes. The problem is that during the party suddenly a lot of people get killed, but then everything resets the next level down. It’s kind of like Groundhog’s Day, and Kembral and some allies, and a frenemy Rika (professional Cat aka thief etc.), have to figure out what’s going on and make progress as reality resets and some folks but not everyone lose their memories each time. And this has to happen before they get to the final Layer. There’s a supernatural game at foot, but who are the players, what are the rules, and is this a game that a) Kembral can win, and B) wants to win?
There are plenty of discoveries, but often they involve character reveals (like someone’s backstory, someone’s secret identity, etc.) and that’s what keeps the story interesting. Kembral gets the general idea of the game and the stakes pretty quickly, but how to win without sacrificing too much is less clear. Figuring out a lot of the various character nuances, including Kembral’s, really keeps the story and the world interesting. There’s an odd emphasis on people’s equivalent to zodiac signs, although eventually there’s a reason for that, and even the main antagonist, once made known, is both a little complicated but also not the sympathetic villain that’s been trendy for a while (those re-tellings of various fairy tales etc from the villain’s perspective have annoyed me for years). There’s a secondary antagonist who isn’t nearly as well developed, but that might happen in a sequel (and it looks like there will be at least one), and a third one who seems to be dead at one point, but vaguely enough that there’s a good chance they make a surprising reappearance at a later time.
There’s enough of “what if” and “what about” in the conclusion that I’m definitely looking forward to what’s next.