Ilona Andrews – Clean Sweep

Once a free serial novel on their website, now published as a novel at Amazon on December 4, 2013, with an extra chapter worth of text.
Genre: fantasy / sci-fi
Cover: compelling, I like it.



On the outside, Dina Demille is the epitome of normal. She runs a quaint Victorian Bed and Breakfast in a small Texas town, owns a Shih Tzu named Beast, and is a perfect neighbor, whose biggest problem should be what to serve her guests for breakfast. But Dina is…different: Her broom is a deadly weapon; her Inn is magic and thinks for itself. Meant to be a lodging for otherworldly visitors, the only permanent guest is a retired Galactic aristocrat who can’t leave the grounds because she’s responsible for the deaths of millions and someone might shoot her on sight. Under the circumstances, “normal” is a bit of a stretch for Dina.
And now, something with wicked claws and deepwater teeth has begun to hunt at night… Feeling responsible for her neighbors, Dina decides to get involved. Before long, she has to juggle dealing with the annoyingly attractive, ex-military, new neighbor, Sean Evans—an alpha-strain werewolf—and the equally arresting cosmic vampire soldier, Arland, while trying to keep her inn and its guests safe. But the enemy she’s facing is unlike anything she’s ever encountered before. It’s smart, vicious, and lethal, and putting herself between this creature and her neighbors might just cost her everything.


I was very happy when I received the ARC for this story. Of course, two days later, the book was already available on Amazon, much to the surprise of the authors, who were planning for a Christmas release. My friend Karin has recommended this story earlier, but I don’t like to tease myself with serials, I want the whole story all at once. And she was so right in recommending this! I am not going to tell you anything about the story itself, read the blurb for that, as I don’t want to spoil anything about it for you, you just have to experience it yourself.

I read this story in one evening, totally captivated and enchanted with it. It is a brilliant mix of science-fiction as in Aliens and other worlds, and magic as known in fantasy. It did remind me in some parts of some early science fiction I read as a teen, and other parts made me think fairy tale. But it is 100% Ilona Andrews, unique, imaginative and entertaining. I instantly connected with Dina, and just wanted to know how she handled things, and the new “people” she encountered. The Inn itself is somehow a living magical creature, and it defends itself and its inhabitants against danger. That was really fun to read about.

This is for now a standalone novel, but I can happily write, the first in a series. I can’t wait for the next one, and I also can’t recommend it enough to all of you. This is a fun story filled with action and original characters and happenings, but don’t start this book expecting romance and hot love scenes. If that is all you want to read, don’t try this one.

9 stars.





Buy from Amazon: here
Buy from Barnes and Nobles: here

© 2013 Reviews by Aurian