Genre: Adult

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…

Guys, if you haven’t read an Ilona Andrews book, please, for the love of all things sane and holy, GET YOUR PRIORITIES STRAIGHT AND READ HER NOW! Specifically the Innkeeper Chronicles series! Clean Sweep! Sweep in Peace! ALL OF HER BOOOKS!

This is, by far, the BEST urban fantasy I’ve ever read. EVER EVER EVER READ. You’re probably thinking, “But, Faye, didn’t you say a few months ago that it was Ilona Andrews’ Kate Daniels series that was the best you’ve ever read?” That tidbit was very much true… until I’ve stumbled upon her more recent work, to which I would gleefully and willingly pay a limb to read the succeeding books. As soon as fucking possible.

Okay, fine, I’d also sacrifice a limb to read Anne Bishop’s Marked in Flesh (The Others #4), too, but that’s a post for another day.

I’d like to talk about why this book was the bomb, but seeing that this is the second part of a (hopefully long) series, I’d just go and talk about why it’s AWESOME-SAUCE in general.

1.) AMAZING PREMISE. This is a series that is not boxed in by a single idea alone. You can see so many urban fantasies out there that are chained by their own premises – a world rife with vampires is only full of vampires. A world rife with werewolves is only full of werewolves. After these creatures, most of the time, there is no more room to grow and expand. Not unless you build the book up exceptionally, you can’t just introduce a whole new creature to get to know and explore in a setting that has already been boxed in. But that’s not the case with this series at all; in fact, you could even say that the possibilities here are just so endless. Welcome to Gertrude Inn, one of those neutral grounds on Earth where space creatures can take refuse in and rest as they travel the cosmos.

Which means, that’s right – from vampires to sentients, from space foxes to space giants and other fantastic creatures – you have them all here. The space is literally the limit. There’s so much potential here for different dynamics and extensive world-building, that even I feel so excited at the possibilities. In the second book, there is a summit to be held at the Gertrude Inn among warring space races, to finalize what needs to be done about a war that has been ongoing for decades and decades. Can you just imagine it? The powerful Vampires, the powerful Hope-Crushing Horde, and the mischevous Merchants of Baha-Char in one place?

It’s gonna be a riot, let me tell you.

2.) AWESOME WORLD-BUILDING. And because of this, the world already feels so grand and big and FANTASTIC, and I really commend Ilona Andrews on how she’s building it up. We don’t have all the information immediately, but the things the first two books have already shown us definitely laid the foundation and successfully made me covet even more. You know that feeling where the book already has enough world-building set up and yet YOU JUST CAN’T WAIT FOR MORE?! I am on the throes of suspense here as I wait for the future books to provide us even more introduction to other series, worlds, and situations happening in the universe.

Maybe it’s because I do believe in aliens and that I see the universe and the cosmos as one big romantic thing waiting to be explored and deciphered.

Or maybe this series is just too great for words.

3.) AWESOME HEROINE. As an innkeeper, Dina has her oaths. She has to be neutral when it comes to space-political issues. She has to ensure that the human population must not know of these space creatures’ existence. And she has to have visitors from outer space in order for her inn to survive, as it sustains itself with the magic and presence of these otherworldly visitors. And for me, she is super kick-ass. She may not be as reckless and impulsive as Kate Daniels in Andrews’ other series, but she is undeniably charming and endearing in her own right. I mean, seriously, how can anyone not be amazed by someone who can keep up with all these powerful space beings?

Seriously, though, read this author if you haven’t yet. READ THIS SERIES IF YOU HAVEN’T YET. She is basically my Brandon Sanderson in Urban Fantasy.

4.5 Hot Espressos