All Kembral Thorne wants is to finish her maternity leave in peace. But when her best friend asks for help, she can’t say no, even if it means a visit to a run-down mansion on an isolated island for a will reading. She arrives to find an unexpected reunion of her childhood friends—plus her once-rival, now-girlfriend Rika Nonesuch, there on a mysterious job. Then the will is read, and everything goes sideways.
Eight potential heirs, half of them Kem’s oldest friends. Three cursed relics. The rules: one by one, the heirs will die. The prize for the lone survivor: A wish. And wishes are always bad business. To save their friends, Kem and Rika must race against the clock and descend into other realities once more. But the mansion is full of old secrets and new schemes, and soon the game becomes far more dangerous—and more personal—than they could have imagined.
"It's my human life that has shaped me."
Melissa Caruso's The Last Soul Among Wolves does suffer from the middle book syndrome, taking the excellent premise and characters and concocting a fun adventure that doesn't develop much of either. The sole narrator, Kembral, is settling into her relationship with Rika when a new problem arises and it's another race to a solution over the course of a few days. The formula is the same, but while the first book had a fresh new take on timeloops, this magical whoddunit with a taste of Agatha Christie is a bit all over the place.
The actual case is appropriately eerie, especially when we once again get to explore the levels and its rules and to see the Empyreans in action. One in particular is delightfully creepy, and her actions and goals make sense given the inner rules. In this, the worldbuilding doesn't disappoint.
The character work however loses some of its brilliance. The huge supporting cast was well-balanced in the first book, but here the game is given away way too early. The main problem however is the main couple. Rika and Kembral have a sweet relationship, still learning how to balance their work and being together, but a huge moment of broken trust is treated like a plot beat and, in my opinion, not really resolved or rather a bit thrown under the carpet.
The Last Soul Among Wolves is an entertaining book.
✨ 3.5 stars
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