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Sunday, January 15, 2023

I'm Almost Completely Caught Up on Everything Ilona Andrews has Published.

 



I look at the Innkeeper Chronicles as being Sci-Fi Cozy Mysteries. On the one hand, I can't believe I read the first book in this series, Clean Sweep, and then didn't continue on--thank goodness I found my way back to this series.  I could read about the goings on at the Gertrude Hunt every day. It is such a great blend of what I like in a cozy mystery series and what I love in paranormal/fantasy all mushed together with Ilona Andrews's wonderful world-building and well-rounded characters. 

On to the reviews of books one and two in the series. In the first book we meet Dina who is an Innkeeper, but not a regular Innkeeper, her BnB caters to aliens from all over the universe. The thing is, no one on Earth can know that aliens travel to and from the earth all the time. Turns out Earth is a hub from which you can travel to many different worlds. Dina's job is to protect her guests and make sure earth people don't know about aliens.  We quickly met Sean and Arland. Sean is a werewolf who was born in the USA but his ancestors are from another planet and we met Arland who is a vampire. Vampires in this series are more like super-powerful humans than your classic vampire can't have kids and drain people to death type. I could go on and on because this story is so expansive, but I don't want to bore or spoil you. 

This series has elements of cozy mysteries in these ways:
1. Overarching mystery regarding the backstory of our MC. Her parents are missing
2. Dina has a cozy companion, her deceptively cute dog.
3. Dina runs a BnB that is historically old and she loves to garden. The Inn has a name- Gertrude Hunt- How Cozy is That~
4. A community of quirky recurring characters. 
5. Light romance 
6. Dina does sleuthing to figure out why various people were killed or how to stop a killing.


4 comments:

Northwoman said...

And you have mentioned just some of the reasons Ilona Andrews is my favorite. I'm going to do this series as a Read-along in a few years. I've read them all so it's a bit too new right now. I choose great series like this sometimes so I can do a reread of a favorite.

Anne - Books of My Heart

WendyW said...

I have not read anything by her, but I've added her to my list of authors to try one day!

Berls said...

I enjoyed this series and then I got current, which is like the worst thing that can happen to me in a great series that's not yet complete. Because eventually new books do come out while I'm looking the other way and now I'm behind and probably need to reread to refresh my memory. I see Anne is maybe going to do this as a readalong sometime so maybe I'll just catch up then. Glad you enjoyed it!

Kimberly @ Caffeinated Reviewer said...

I love Ilona Andrews and have read or listened to everything. I just got the new release and am listening to the audio of Sweep of the Heart.