Title: The Last Star in the Void [on Amazon | on Goodreads]Series: The Echo Archives (3rd of 3 books)
Author: Melissa Caruso [Site | Goodreads]
Genres: Multiverse, Supernatural, Thriller/Mystery
Year: 2026
Age: 16+ (the characters are all adults, and the book is indeed marketed to adults, but it can be read by mature teens)
Stars: 4.5/5
Pros: Fresh take on the multiverse trope with strong world-building. Engaging characters. Lots of intriguing action and a few well-placed twists Satisfying conclusion.
Cons: Despite the stakes being high, you never get the sense that one of our heroes could not make it.
WARNING! Blood, body horror, violence, entrapment.
Will appeal to: Those who enjoy modern fantasy, deadly but cool alternate realities, world(s)-ending scenarios, action, humour, romances that don't swallow the plot, and new moms being badass.
Blurb: Kembral Thorne is back on the job. Everything is going great - she hasn’t been in mortal peril for months, her daughter is learning to crawl, and she’s thinking about getting serious with her girlfriend, cat burglar Rika Nonesuch. But then a simple mission goes wrong, and a mysterious Echo hires her for her most dangerous case yet. This time, the murder Kembral must solve is her own. Her first warning: Watch out above you. It won’t be her last. The cryptic messages give Kem an edge against her would-be murderer - but there’s more at stake than her own survival. Rips in the very fabric of reality are spreading through the Echoes, and Kem’s blood is the only thing that can close them. A traitor among her allies is willing to kill to stop her. To save all the worlds, Kem must figure out who she can trust - and Rika must decide how much of her humanity she’ll sacrifice for the power to protect the woman she loves. (Amazon)
Review: First off...DISCLAIMER: I requested this title on NetGalley. Thanks to Little, Brown Book Group UK for providing a temporary ecopy. This didn't influence my review in any way.
BIG FINISH
OK, for those who haven't read the first two installments yet, a brief introduction (I'm quoting from my reviews for Book 1 and 2):
[...] the setting is a world similar to our own - albeit steeped in magic and giving off an early-20th-century vibe - except in this world twelve layers of reality exist: the root universe, or Prime, and its eleven Echoes, getting more and more grotesque and dangerous the farther you stray from their paradigm [...] Our protagonist Kembral belongs to a guild tasked with retrieving people (or things) that get abducted/swallowed by the Echoes [...]
...oh, and she's the single mother of a toddler (Emmi), and she's got a very unusual girlfriend (Rika) who used to be her nemesis. And she's about to face the consequences of her (and Rika's) actions in the previous installments...which includes her investigating her own murder (in a manner of speaking). Have I piqued your interest yet? 😉
I originally requested Book 1 in the series because I can't resist a multiverse setting, and this one put a hell of a spin on the trope to begin with. And I would lie if I said that the world-building didn't remain my favourite aspect of the trilogy (I'll talk about the other aspects below). Book 3 actually expands on Kembral's world, taking us as far as the eighth Echo (though briefly - the final confrontation takes place in the sixth), and since the inherently dangerous and freaky layers of reality are being contaminated and ultimately devoured by the titular Void, everything's even more unsettling and fearsome than usual...except at the same time both the Echoes and the creatures that inhabit them are a thing of (terrible) beauty and a triumph of the imagination. No only that - even so late in the game, Caruso keeps unveiling previously unknown details and rules of her world, so that this isn't only a new adventure, but the culmination of a big picture she's been painstakingly putting together since Book 1 - not to mention that the last installment brings the story full circle, putting all the main events/reveals from its predecessors to fruition. Frankly, the only thing that I regret is that we never got to see the eleventh - and last - Echo, but even so, if you're a multiverse fan, you'll find a lot to love here. [...]
PEPPY PLAYERS
If the world-building is still going strong and Kembral's last adventure carries appropriate weight - what with her having to save all the worlds and her own hide at the same time - the characters don't take a backseat in the slightest. Kembral's relationship with Rika is both sweet and fierce, but also complicated, and not for the sake of drama, but for very real, universe-specific reasons - which is why the two of them have to find a balance if they want to take it to the next level (plus, "teamwork" acquires a very peculiar meaning when it comes to them...). The protagonist's daughter is more present than in the previous installment, even when she's not physically there - and as usual, the author is candid about the joys and pains of motherhood, especially given Kembral's dangerous line of work. Some new characters enter the equation, while old favourites make a return, and the Echo of a cast member may or may not appear...depending on the meaning you attach to the verb in question 😉. Also, kudos to Caruso for infusing both the characters' banters and Kembral's inner voice with humor and wit without cheapening the life-or-death problems at hands - or the more domestic, yet equally intense moments (make sure you aren't turned off by the f-word though - it gets thrown around a lot).
CROSSOVER APPEAL
I do have a couple of quibbles about the story, but overall, they didn't impact my enjoyment of it. For instance, if Echoes are populated by odd (and often dangerous) creatures, I'm not sure how they can also contain other versions of the root universe's inhabitants - shouldn't they be super-crowded, at the very least? Also, for such a life-or-death scenario, I never got the sense that the core group of characters (Kembral and Rika, but also the first's closest friends) were in mortal peril, because the series has a cozy core under all its horrors - which lowered the stakes somehow. But frankly, that's just me being nitpicky. This series has been such a nice surprise for me, and it ended with a total bang. I'll have to quote from my review for Book 2 this time, because I couldn't say it better than that:
Caruso's world will appeal both to lit-fantasy lovers and to readers who, like me, prefer a contemporary (or futuristic) setting, also thanks to the writing style keeping a nice balance between genre-appropriate and modern, and to gender/sexuality matters being a non-issue [...]
So, whether you're a fantasy reader or you're only dabbling in the genre on a book-to-book basis, and if you like multiple universes, sapphic romances/queer characters (there's even an NB one here), cinematic adventures, mysteries, and a healthy dose of humour, you have no excuses for skipping this series. And who knows, maybe we'll be able to convince the author to write Kembral's daughter's spin-off series one day 😉...
