Everything IA touches turns to gold, and this series is no exception. The Innkeeper Chronicles feel so cozy, yet are so action packed and have so much swoon-worthy romance. IA somehow weaves a story with the perfect balance of mystery, filled with high-tense situations, with all these unique concepts, and makes it feel like home. I can’t recommend this series, or this writing duo, enough.

This series is written in weekly installments that IA posts for free. I, being the masochist that I truly am, always wait until it is actually published in book form to review, but it is still pretty freakin’ awesome that this is a series that they write for their fans out of the kindness of their hearts.

Without giving too much away, and because we are three books into this series now, the first book in this series, Clean Sweep, stars a innkeeper, Dina, who runs a magical inn that allows life forms from all over the Galaxy to stay for whatever period of time they need. Not everyone has the magical gifts to be able to run their own inn, but Dina’s parents owned their own inn while she was growing up, so she is very familiar with this magical safe place that is hidden away from the rest of Earth.

Innkeepers also have immense power, especially on their inn’s property. On top of being able to command the house at your every whim, because you have to be able to make your guests comfortable, which means constantly changing the rooms and layout to their needs, innkeepers have the responsibility to keep their guests safe, and have a whole magical property at their disposal.

Yet, an inn’s ability to thrive and live is constantly syncing with the guests that are needed for it to house. In the first book, The Innkeeper Chronicles, this is very apparent, but now that we are three books in, the inn is prospering, thriving, and very powerful.

Each book deals with a new threat to the inn, or its guests, but the constant theme of the whole series is that Dina’s once innkeeper parents have gone missing. Dina keeps a picture of them on display right when you walk into her inn, no matter how the layout of the inn changes, in hopes that someone will recognize them and be able to give her information. So far, her quest results have turned up empty.

“Husbands can fall out of love. Friends can betray you. But when you’re stuck in a hellhole far from home, your family will move heaven and earth to get you back.”

But in One Fell Sweep she gets a proposition from a new alien that wishes to stay at the Gertrude Hunt for information on her parents’ whereabouts that she cannot help but accept. Even if that means risking everything and everyone she loves.

And when I said everyone that Dina loves, I truly mean that, because this book introduces a few new characters that would be impossible for you not to fall in love with!:

Seriously, every hiss turned me into a bigger puddle of goo.

“I have run, my lord. And I would do it again, if the circumstances called for it. Honor can’t keep my daughter alive, but I can.”

And if you’ve been following my reviews of this series, you’ll know that Arland is, hands down, my favorite character. (When will I grow out of my brooding vampire phase?) And seeing his character arc take a very unexpected turn made my heart melt and my ovaries swoon.

Can we also talk about how this book takes place during Christmas? Like, this book already feels magical and is impossible for the reader to not want to be staying and living in Dina’s inn, but the timeline correlating with our present day was something so amazing. I couldn’t help but be enthralled with this book, in this world, and with these characters once again.

“You taught me the meaning of loneliness, because when I don’t see you, I feel alone.”

Seeing Dina grow not only as an innkeeper, but as a person, is so rewarding. I cannot wait to see the direction the fourth book takes, and how Dina and Sean are going to proceed with their new information, regarding the Ripper of Souls.

IA is seriously in a league of their own for Urban Fantasy, but, honestly, they are dominating their take on Sci-Fi, too. With all the different planets and species, and then their greater message of acceptance and love with organisms that are different or misunderstood in this Galaxy, too? Then add in all their original and unique concepts. Like, this wife and husband writing duo are such a blessing to the literary world. #blessed