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.

“Clean Sweep” made me smile. Despite dealing with werewolves, vampires and predatory aliens locked in mortal hand to hand combat (which is described in great detail) it manages to be completely charming and often quite amusing.

Set in modern-day Texas, it tells the story of a young Innkeeper who’s bed and breakfast is actually part of a network of magical Inns that offer a neutral place for travellers from different worlds and species to stay in in safety.

Ilona Andrews has created an original universe that cleverly combines and redefines urban fantasy and science fiction tropes into something new and intriguing. She’s then used it as a setting for taking a tongue-in-cheek tilt at the romance themes that typically wrap themselves like vines around- vampire, werewolf, magic-maiden threesomes in Urban Fantasy. While the book never tips over into either slapstick or satire and has many scenes of graphic violence, humour rather than tension is the dominant scent in this book.

The Innkeeper is fascinating. She speaks softly and draws upon formal Southern manners but is unphased by carrying out an autopsy on an alien who has attacked her and will happily slaughter her enemies in droves when necessary. The depth of her character is what makes the book. The male characters, regardless of species, seem to be mainly foils to display our Inn Keeper or generate laughter at the (self-evidently inferior) approach males take to problem-solving.

The humour sometimes made it hard for me to take the science fiction seriously (the names of the planets could have come directly from Molière’s comedies) but the comic scene in which one of the scary predators gets its ass kicked in a Costco aisle, more than made up for that.

“Clean Sweep” has been on my TBR pile for a while, partly because I kept selecting Ilona Andrew’s Kate Daniels books instead. I don’t have the same hunger for another Inn Keeper book that the Kate Daniels books always leave me with but I’ll reach for the next in the series when I need a light, unchallenging but original read that will make me smile.