The Last Soul Among Wolves

By: Melissa Caruso

Narrated by: Moira Quirk

The Last Soul Among Wolves is the brilliant second installment in Melissa Caruso's Echo Archives series, a whip-smart adventure fantasy featuring cursed relics, sapphic romance, and a magical murder mystery.

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.

Critic reviews

Praise for the Echo Archives:

"A charming fantasy mystery that kept me guessing until the very last page—I completely adored this book and would read a dozen more of Kembral's adventures." —Shannon Chakraborty

“This book has everything you've been craving: sword fights, time loops, complicated feelings about parenthood, and banter with your sworn enemy. What an absolute delight!" —Alix E. Harrow

"A brilliant, breathlessly twisty fantasy adventure that I utterly adored. Melissa Caruso is a powerhouse." —Tasha Suri

" A masterpiece—filled with excitement, romance, and characters you would protect with your life. The wobbly time effects in this book reach past its pages, making hours of reading blink by in a moment. Unmissable!” —Andrea Stewart

"Equal parts sheer adventurous fun and creepy, dimension-bending tension, featuring a relatable and instantly engaging protagonist. This is totally unlike anything I've read before; Caruso has pulled off a wonderfully creative premise with skill and panache." —Freya Marske

An exciting murder mystery in a fantastic setting

I loved this second book in Melissa Caruso’s Echo Archives series of high fantasy. It’s so well written, I felt completely immersed in the story. There are no info dumps here, and the author doesn’t spoon-feed you information, so you have to pay attention to understand the world, the characters, and the plot. I highly recommend reading the books in order, otherwise this might be confusing.

Our likable main character Kembral Thorne is a Hound—a powerful member of the guardian’s guild, and also a new mother. That’s such an unusual trait for a lead character in a fantasy story, although it didn’t affect Kembral’s thoughts and actions as much in this story as in the first book. I admire Kembral’s loyalty to her daughter, her friends, and her job, although those priorities are often in conflict.

I’m fond of Kembral’s past love interest turned adversary turned girlfriend, Rika Nonesuch, a sassy and extremely talented Cat—a member of the thieves’ guild. Rika’s such a fun character, with many secrets and a long and complicated history with Kembral that we slowly learn about throughout the course of the story. The story was also filled with many colorful side characters, and I love how it was often unclear who could be trusted.

This world has layers called Echoes, with each deeper layer becoming an increasingly strange and distorted version of the Prime reality. There are also scheming creatures called Echoes and Empyreans, who reminded me of various dark and scary tales of the fae. We didn’t get to explore the different Echo layers as much in this story as the first, but there is plenty of magic and interference from the Empyreans.

The plot, focusing on a murder mystery as well as a complicated web of secrets and deceit, easily held my attention with its twists and turns. I enjoyed the mix of magic, mystery, action, suspense, humor, and a slow-burn Sapphic romance.

The audiobook production was excellent, and Moira Quirk’s fantastic narration really contributed to my enjoyment of the story. She’s so much fun to listen to, with good pacing, clear pronunciation, distinctive voices to suit each character, and the ability to convey mood and emotion effectively. The story works very well as an audiobook, and it includes a downloadable PDF of maps.

This story has a satisfying ending, but I want to know more about these characters and this world, so I am eagerly awaiting Book 3. I recommend this book for fans of epic fantasies involving scheming fae-like beings.

Favorite Series of All Time

I adored the first book, I absolutely fell in love with the series in this one. I cannot begin to sing the praises this series deserves. It has become my absolute favorite. I only want more and more of it.

A rollicking action packed adventure

I loved “The Last Soul Among Wolves (The Echo Archives #2)”.

It’s the sequel to “The Last Hour Between Worlds (The Echo Archives #1)”. The audio version performed by Moira Quirk (the voice actor of the Locked Tomb series) was excellent. She is a great narrator.

“The Last Soul Among Wolves” is a blend of Indiana Jones and Agatha Christie’s “And Then There Were None” - it’s so much fun!

The first book was on my favorites list last year and this one is even better. What made the first one unique was that the main character was an exhausted nursing mother who was also smart and good with a sword. A protagonist who is a single mother with a newborn is very rare to see in an action packed adventure and this theme continues here (it’s only been 10 weeks since the last story ended). The new tale also has similar magical elements, action, campy humor, illusions, and sapphics with swords, but with much more detailed character backstory, world building, and lots of banter.

Kembral Thorne and her girlfriend Rika Nonesuch must solve the latest mystery in order to stop more people from dying. I love adventure tales which feature fierce and competent women so I really enjoyed spending more time with these characters. Plus, there is also a very colorful supporting cast.

A page turner with secrets, murders, mysteries, cursed relics, suspense, witty banter, campy humor, heartfelt scenes, character backstory, magical creatures, danger, and nonstop adventure. Kembral is still exhausted from caring for her baby and now she has to work together with her overly protective girlfriend Rika (under another very tight timeline) to save her childhood friends.

There are underlying themes of free will and being able to control one’s fate, and the importance of old friendships, but at its heart it’s a rollicking action packed adventure. A murder mystery caper that’s just so entertaining. For me, this book was the perfect escape from our current dismal news cycle - I loved it.

*Just a note - the main plots are all resolved in each of the books of the series (without cliffhangers) but there is a lot of backstory that would be better appreciated if you read them in order. So, start with book one.

Stunning performance, great foreshadowing, immaculate world building

All around good time! This is the kind of series you hope gets a saga

Fantastical and mysterious and full of fun

Ms. Caruso book is enchanting; full of multidimensional characters in a multifaceted world. I keep coming back to her stories because I want to know what’s going to happen next to our intrepid adventurers. The tiny breadcrumbs she leaves throughout the novel are like delectable treats that reward and impress this mystery lover. Rich storytelling come to life from the narrator- I know who’s speaking just by the tone of her voice which is lovely. She would definitely be a member of the butterfly guild.