Dina DeMille doesn’t run
your typical Bed and Breakfast. Her inn defies laws of physics, her
fluffy dog is secretly a monster, and the only paying guest is a former
Galactic tyrant with a price on her head. But the inn needs guests to
thrive, and guests have been scarce, so when an Arbitrator shows up at
Dina's door and asks her to host a peace summit between three warring
species, she jumps on the chance.
Unfortunately, for Dina, keeping the peace between Space Vampires, the Hope-Crushing Horde, and the devious Merchants of Baha-char is much easier said than done. On top of keeping her guests from murdering each other, she must find a chef, remodel the inn...and risk everything, even her life, to save the man she might fall in love with. But then it's all in the day's work for an Innkeeper… |
*rates book*....checks in closet.....looks under bed....sits down and sighs in relief I escaped an attack for giving an Ilona Andrews book an average rating.
I was 'floored' by the first book in the Innkeeper Chronicles, Clean Sweep. It was cute, so unique nothing else came to mind that resembled it, fun in the potential future romance department, adventurous, just plain good. Now we have a much wanted-sequel, but here the brush bristles fell a little flat.
Don't get me wrong - it's "good". It's still unique and inventive, as the plot is ridiculously complex, digging into that supply closet filled with bizarre science-fiction style politics, creatures from other planets, a politically charged war fought in the Nexus. The ending was a creative way to solve a major issue and fix another one - my hat off in respect to the talented imagination of the authors when it comes to crafting plots, climaxes, and resolutions.
They faltered a bit with everything else, however; the downtime was too repetitive and I felt like most of the book was an educational journey. I didn't latch on to the characters to care enough before I was bombarded with info-dump left and right. Some of the scenes were amusing and some charming, but most of them just not that interesting.
As the innkeeper, Dina is cool in her abilities but she sparkled more in the original. Armand is still a fun character but he seems a little less shiny and kind of faded in the background. Orro was the award winning addition - I"ll be happy to see more of him in the future. All the other newcomers...interesting for plot sake but nothing that latched on to me.
I still greatly enjoy the series, even if this one didn't possess the same magic as the original. It's much too good a series to sweep under the rug (yes, I just went there), so I will definitely be continuing it. I'm too impatient to read serial chapters on the website, though, so I'll wait for the full release.
Book Quotes:
“My future chef was an oversized, hysterical hedgehog with a martyr complex.”
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