
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
I've read several of Melissa Caruso's books, and in each case what has impressed me most is her worldbuilding. She creates well-thought-out fantasy worlds and cultures that feel lived-in and real, with a multitude of small details that add up to a fantasy universe you can believe in.
This book is no exception, but I think in this story she takes a welcome step forward in her characterizations. Just the fact of her making her protagonist, Kembral Thorne, a new mother with all the attendant issues (sleep deprivation, leaking breasts, and a body that is still recovering from the stresses of pregnancy and labor) is a breath of fresh air. As the story opens, Kembral is at a year's turning party, this world's equivalent of New Year's Eve, and the first time she has been away from her baby for two months. Strange things start happening, and before Kembral knows it, the house where the party is being held slips into an Echo--alternate reflections of the Prime world that get weirder and more dangerous with each layer. Kembral and the rest of the characters come to know this well, as over the course of the book they slip into the deep and deadly unknown Echoes, eleven layers down.
This is obviously the author's spin on Fae and Faerie, although in this book they are called Echoes and Empyreans. The turning of the year is a big deal for the all-powerful Empyreans, as whoever names the new year as the clock strikes midnight is set to gain a great deal of power. Because of this, various Echo factions are playing a dangerous game to see who can win the right to name the year-turning, and Kembral and the partygoers are dragged into this deadly game. Most of them end up dying over and over again as the house sinks deeper into the Echoes, and Kembral has to ally with her nemesis, professional thief and con artist Rika Nonesuch, to save the party attendees and her city. And she has to do it by midnight.
This structure of an hour steadily advancing with each successive Echo the characters fall into ratchets up the tension and suspense (which is cleverly marked by succeeding chapter headings advancing five minutes for each new Echo). Kembral and Rika become unwitting players in the Empyreans' game, and they have to prevent the factions from slaughtering the partygoers in each Echo and reaching the bottom layer with a winning blood sacrifice that will enable them to name the year. They succeed in knocking some factions out, but others still remain, down to the last and eleventh Echo. Along the way, Kembral and Rika, who have a complicated history that is gradually revealed, come to terms with what happened between them in the past and set the stage for a new, possibly romantic relationship going forward.
This is a very well paced book with some nearly unbearable tension in the later chapters. The worldbuilding is wonderful, and the characters have depth. I think this is the author's best book yet.
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