Sweep of the Blade by Ilona Andrews

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Category: Adult
Genre: Fantasy, Space Opera
Content: Strong language, A mostly off page sex scene



Maud Demille is a daughter of Innkeepers—a special group who provide ‘lodging’ to other-planetary visitors—so she knows that a simple life isn't in the cards. But even Maud could never have anticipated what Fate would throw at her.

Once a wife to a powerful vampire knight, Maud and her young daughter, Helen, were exiled with him for his treachery to the desolate, savage planet of Karhari. Karhari killed her husband, and Maud—completely abandoned by his family—has spent over a year avenging his debts. Rescued by her sister Dina, she's sworn off all things vampire.

Except... In helping Dina save the world, she met Arland, the Marshal of House Krahr, one of the most powerful vampire houses.

I thoroughly enjoyed this installment to the Innkeeper series. It was a refreshing change to have a book from Maud's perspective instead of Dina's (who I love, by the way). I ended up loving this one as much as the other books in the series. If you haven't read any of the books in this series, it's a urban fantasy/space fantasy kind of mix set mostly in an Inn. The world encompasses several different alien species, that include werewolves and vampires. The werewolves and vampires are different here from the usual ones. I like the space vampires in this book a lot. They are a warrior like race that also practice court type etiquette and intrigue reminiscent of 1800s aristocracy, where they use a lot of word games and subtle insults (well, some not so subtle), but it never got stuffy or boring. There was always a fight just waiting around the corner.

I did feel like Maud was too much of a Mary Sue. She was good at everything she did, and knew about all sorts of things that no one else seemed to know. That got a little old at times, but I still loved this book and her character. Arland was great in this book. I loved him in the other Innkeeper books and it was nice to have him as the main love interest here. Helen was the best, she was so cute, and my favorite of all the characters in the book. I would love to read more about all these characters.