One Fell Sweep (Innkeeper Chronicles, #3)

by Ilona Andrews

[Melanie]

My review and an extended sample of the audiobook are posted at Hotlistens.com.

It is no secret that Ilona Andrews writing team is one of my all-time favorite authors. I’ve read all of their stuff and all of it amazing. Yes, some stories are better than others, but there isn’t a bad story in the bunch. Each series they write is amazing. They are best known for their Kate Daniels series, but I also loved The Edge series, which was more PNR than UF. Their newest series, Hidden Legacy is another amazing series. I’m way excited for book two to come out this year. They write The Innkeeper Chronicles series on their blog, one chapter at a time for free. Then once the entire story is published on the blog, they take the entire thing and clean it up a bit. They also add some less family friendly parts (they want the one available to the world to be good for all, which is great since you don’t know who will stumble upon it). To show you how well this series is loved, a book that was available for free, debuted on the NYT ebook list at #2. How awesome is that?? I still had to wait, because I wanted the audiobooks. Renee Raudman is a favorite narrator of mine and she so gets the Ilona Andrews stories. She is the perfect narrator for all of their work. But you can believe that I downloaded this book the day it was released on Audible.

Okay, I guess I should tell you about this story. This series is set mostly on Earth. Dina is an Innkeeper. Her inn, Gertrude Hunt, is not just any inn. It is a sentient being. Dina works with the inn to house guests on Earth from other planets. Her primary goal is to protect her guests, no matter what else. Her second goal is to prevent Earthlings from knowing about anything that goes on at the end. People on Earth are not to know that there are beings from other planets visiting. In this series, we’ve met many different kinds of creatures. Vampires, werewolves and many that you won’t see anywhere but in this series.

The story starts off fairly normal until a guest brings a message to Dina that her sister needs her help. She’s on a planet that is highly restricted and Dina can’t just visit. She calls on a past vampire guest for a favor. Arland offers to take Dina himself. Sean insists on going as backup and to protect Dina. There is a bit of competition between Arland and Sean for Dina’s affections. I wouldn’t call it a love triangle, but more of the fact that there are two possibilities for Dina.

So they go can rescue not only Dina’s sister, but also Dina’s young five-year-old, half-vampire niece. Maud, the sister, is a great character. She’s been through some harsh times. Her family is banished and her in-laws cut all times between her, her husband and daughter. They are surviving on this wretched planet, until the husband does something stupid and gets himself killed. So after Dina saves Maud and the daughter, Helen, they all go back to the Inn.

There is also another storyline about some new guests that people are trying to kill. They are called Hiru. They are mostly metal. They look horrible and smell worse. There is a group of people who are trying to exterminate the species. Dina will have none of it. The two guests will be protected, no matter the costs.

So, in this story, we learn a ton about Inns. We meet some new species. There is a lot of time spent with some characters that we’ve grown to love throughout the series. Not only do we get a lot time with Arland and Sean, we also get a good amount of time with Orro (hedgehog like chef) and Caldenia (the Inn’s first and permanent guest). There is also Beast, Dina’s shih tzu like dog (she’s a lot like the breed we know, but she does transform into more when she’s mad). We even get to spend a little time with Cookie, a foxlike character from the previous book.

Here’s the what thing I love about this series and all of Ilona Andrews stories. First, the characters. The Andrews writing pair write some of the best characters in the genre. I don’t think there is a single character I don’t like. They even write villains that are amazing deep that you can get into a love/hate relationship with. Second, is their imagination. They write some the weirdest creatures I’ve ever read about. I have no idea how they come up with some of the stuff they write. Each book has something completely different in it. Three, snark. All of their books have laugh out loud moments that I just love. Their stories can be dark at times, but they balance it so well with the snark that it helps to really lighten them up. They can make you laugh and cry in a single story and seem to do it with such ease.

Narration
Where to start with Renee Raudman’s narration. She’s just amazing. She takes these stories that can be very violent and dark with a mix of snark and passion, and just rolls it all together as if it was easy. Even more so when you think of the creatures that Ilona Andrews writes and Renee narrates them perfectly every time. In this book, there’s the weird Hiru that she has to voice, two of them at that. There’s also a lizard like creature that she also has to voice. I will also call out that she did an amazing job with Helen, the hissing vampire child.