Linda @ (un)Conventional Bookworms

Sweep in Peace by Ilona Andrews
Series: Innkeeper Chronicles #2
Published by Selfpublished on 13 November 2015
Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Paranormal, Romance
Pages: 237
Format: Kindle
Source: Kindle Purchase
Reading Challenges: 2016 HW Challenge, 2016 Winter COYER

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…

Andrews did it again! Sweep in Peace took me on a wild ride, and I stayed up until almost 3:30 am to finish reading about Dina and Gertrude Hunt.

Sweep in Peace is just as well done and filled with adventure as the first Innkeeper Chronicles was! There is so much going on, and Dina will do everything she can to save her inn, Gertrude Hunt. When an arbitrator shows up to tell her he needs an inn to host some peace talks between three rival species on the planet Nexus, she knows it’s very dangerous, especially when she realizes that all the other Innkeepers told him no. She really needs money, though, and her inn really needs more visitors in order to thrive.

There is a lot of intrigue and mystery in Sweep in Peace, and through it all – the long hours, the hard work, and the diplomacy, Dina stays strong and true to herself and the customs of Innkeepers. There is quite a bit of humour here as well, and I found myself both chuckling and really laughing on more than one occasion. Especially the scenes in which Marais, a human police officer, showed up in made me laugh. And I really wonder what he’ll be up to in future books.

As Dina does what she can to survive and for her Inn to survive, she is thorn between staying neutral and between her longing for her one time maybe could have been boyfriend Sean. She has to stay alert to the many different people trying to manipulate her, and she has to prove more than once that her magic is strong enough to keep everyone in line.

Written in third person perspective, past tense, Sweep in Peace is a fast read, and it’s a gem of a story the Andrews’ shared with their readers. The first few chapters were posted on their website before it was edited, and I did read a couple of them, but I have to say I prefer just getting the whole book to enjoy in one go. If you’re an Andrews fan, this is definitely a series you should pick up. And I heard that there are some characters from their series The Edge (which I haven’t *gasp* read yet) here, so that motivated me to check out their backlist as well.

There was simply no other money to be had. I had to feed the guests. Vampires required meet with fresh herbs, otrokars had to have spices and citrus with everything, and Nuan Cee’s clan had a taste for poultry, and they were particular about how it was prepared. I had to hire someone, whatever it cost.

Six months and no word. Either I’de imagined things and he wasn’t at all interested, or something had happened to him. Thinking about Sean being dead somewhere out there among the stars made me angry. 

“You are not meant to be at peace. We, the human beings, are meant to live life to its fullest. We are meant to experience it all – sadness, disappointment, rage, kindness, joy, love. We are meant to test ourselves. It is painful and frightening, but this is what it means to be alive. You are hiding from life here. This isn’t peace. This is a slow, deliberate suicide.”