Review: Clean Sweep by Ilona Andrews

Book: Clean Sweep

By: Ilona Andrews

Published: December 2, 2013

Published By: Ilona Andrews

Description: Dina Demille runs a Bed and Breakfast in a small Texas town and tries her best to pretend to be normal. Her broom is a deadly weapon, her house is a sentient magic inn for otherwordly visitors to Earth, and her 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 can be a little difficult. Now something with wicked claws and deepwater teeth begins hunting dogs in her neighborhood. Feeling responsible for the welfare of her neighbors, Dina decides to get involved. Before long, she has to juggle dealing with an alpha-strain werewolf and a cosmic vampire, while trying to keep her inn and its guests safe. But the enemy she’s facing is unlike anything she’d ever encountered before. It’s smart, vicious, and lethal, and putting herself between this creature and her neighbors might just cost her everything.

My Thoughts: I’ll admit, for some time I was a bit afraid to pick up any of Ilona Andrews’ books outside the Kate Daniels series that I love so much. In my mind, no other book would really compare, and I’d probably find myself wanting the Kate Daniels ones. But when Ilona Andrews announced on the twitter page that they were offering up ARC’s of Clean Sweep I just couldn’t pass up that opportunity.

Clean Sweep began as a free web serial story on the IlonaAndrews website, and was later self published as an eBook. It began following Dina, an Innkeeper in Texas as she comes across a dead dog in her neighborhood that has been tragically savaged, and is not the first of its kind. Dina knows something fishy is up, and she unintentionally elicits the help of Sean Evans in search of the beast terrorizing the neighborhood. What ensues is an interesting story of magic, other worlds, strange creatures, and infuriating situations.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading Clean Sweep. It was a wonderful view into a different type of storyline, and had tons of different types of mythological beasts and historical facts. I have no idea how Ilona and Andrew Gordon think up these things but their brains are thoroughly insane (in a good way). The story is not at all predictable, thanks to the random beasts that pop up out of nowhere and the randomness that goes on. It also helped that there were a few pics included to help bring the story to life.

I thoroughly enjoyed this one. It brought me around to the other works by Ilona, some of which I am currently reading/listening to (Expect more reviews to come shortly.) I would recommend this one to those who are interested in Sci Fi, and action books, and of course, fans of Ilona Andrews. 5 Stars (possibly biased rating due to my infatuation with all books by Ilona…still, I assure you it’s a good one.)