Gertrude Hunt, the nicest Bed and Breakfast in Red Deer, Texas, is glad to have you. We cater to particular kind of guests, the ones most people don’t know about. The older lady sipping her Mello Yello is called Caldenia, although she prefers Your Grace. She has a sizable bounty on her head, so if you hear kinetic or laser fire, try not to stand close to the target. Our chef is a Quillonian. The claws are a little unsettling, but he is a consummate professional and truly is the best chef in the Galaxy. If you see a dark shadow in the orchard late at night, don’t worry. Someone is patrolling the grounds. Do beware of our dog.
Your safety and comfort is our first priority. The inn and your host, Dina Demille, will defend you at all costs. We ask only that you mind other guests and conduct yourself in a polite manner.

My Review:

This one is all about family. The one you are born to, and the one that you make. With Dina stuck in the middle, trying to protect all of them. Not just because that’s her job, but because that’s who she is.

This is also a story about grace under pressure, or under fire. Laser fire.

The plot is driven by the two things that drive Dina – the need to find her missing parents, and the need to protect her guests. In this story those two things become inextricably entwined, thanks to a little push from George the interfering Arbitrator. While this whole mess could be payback for the way he screwed Dina over in Sweep in Peace, knowing George it is much more likely that he has plans to use Dina again in the future. We’ll see.

Our story begins with Dina receiving the one thing she can’t ignore – a message from her sister Maud. Maud is in big trouble. And she’s on a remote planet in the middle of the Holy Anocracy, which is vampire territory. So Dina sends out the equivalent of an intergalactic distress call to her vampire friend, Lord Arland of House Krahr. Dina needs his help to rescue her sister. And she’s more than willing to ignore Arland’s fascination with her in order to get it. Fortunately for Dina, her werewolf, Sean, is not willing to let Arland try to fascinate Dina without his presence.

And besides, the planet where Maud is marooned is completely lawless. It’s where the vampires send their castoffs and casteless. Dina is going to need both of them to rescue Maud.

Except its more of an extraction than a rescue. Maud is holding her own just fine, but she’s accomplished what she came to do and it’s time for her and her daughter to leave. Even though Maud is human, just like a good vampire wife she has taken vengeance on all of her late and actually unlamented husband’s killers. It’s time for her to go.

And while Dina is relieved to get Maud back to earth, along with Maud’s daughter (and Dina’s niece) Helen, Arland is absolutely mesmerized. Maud’s combination of human frailties with vampire sensibilities is something he can’t resist. Maud’s doing plenty of resisting for both of them. And Sean is grateful to have Arland out of the competition for Dina. Not that the two alphas aren’t metaphorically, and occasionally literally, still pissing on trees to mark their respective territories.

But it’s a good thing that they have mostly settled their difference, because Dina is going to need all the help she can get. She’s received an offer that is much too good to be true. She can get an answer to her question about where to find her parents from an unimpeachable source. But in order to do so she has to accept the most literally noxious guests in the galaxy – and fend off their fiendishly devious and mindlessly fanatic killers. For as long as it takes.

Or as long as she can.

Escape Rating A: They say that blood is thicker than water, but Dina’s story proves that its not just the blood you share together, but also the blood you shed together. Because her mission in One Fell Sweep places the Gertrude Hunt in the middle of an all out war.

There is a lot of commentary hidden in this particular fight. Her guests are the Hiru. They have been hunted to extinction by the Draziri. For religious reasons. Or unreasons. The Draziri priesthood labeled the Hiru as anathema, and told their followers that killing a Hiru would wipe away the sins of the killer and all their ancestors, no matter how heinous the crime. Even killing a priest could be washed away by killing a Hiru.

And the Hiru are totally unobjectionable as people. They are kind and peaceloving. But their planet was destroyed by the Draziri, and they are biologically incapable of living anywhere else without environmental suits. The worst part is that these are truly awful environmental suits, and they apparently stink to high heaven. Which makes Hiru difficult guests at best, and dangerous at worst. Not because the Hiru do anything dangerous, but because the Draziri ruthlessly hunt them down wherever they go. And the fanatic Draziri do not give a damn about Earth’s neutrality or the possibility of exposing the inn network. They’ve already been banned from Earth altogether, and they ignore that prohibition as well. In pursuit of a Hiru, they have no scruples and no morals and will let nothing get between them and their target. Until Dina puts the Gertrude Hunt between the Draziri and her Hiru guests.

And all hell breaks loose.

Anyone who misses the commentary about the damage done by religious fanaticism and religious intolerance isn’t reading the same book the rest of us did. The lesson is sharp and brutal and the ending makes it stick with the reader long after the story is over.

Religion, particularly religious fanaticism, is a tremendous force. When it is turned towards evil, it is a terrible one. We all make our own gods. And all institutions protect themselves first.

One of the other things I loved about this particular installment of the series is that every single member of Dina’s family gets their chance to shine and to contribute to the fight. I also love the way that the author resolved the love triangle. That could have gone all sorts of wrong. Instead, we have the opportunity for another beautiful love story and one that makes sense in the context of the series.

A couple of thoughts about this particular book before I finish. The Hiru, at least in their environmental suits, are ugly in so many ways. The Draziri, on the other hand, are physically beautiful even if morally bankrupt. I’m not sure whether the appropriate aphorism is the one about “all the is gold does not glitter” or the one about “pretty is as pretty does, but ugly goes clean through to the bone”. Maybe both.

I have fallen in love with this series. I started Clean Sweep one night, and simply couldn’t let go until I had read the whole thing. These were books well worth staying up late to finish. And now I’m waiting, just like everyone else, for Ilona to begin serializing book 4 on her website, just as she did with the first three books. It will give me another reason to look forward to Fridays.

Blood is thicker than water, and family is more important than anything else. But that includes family of choice. Definitely and defiantly.

Dina DeMille doesn’t run your typical Bed and Breakfast. Her inn defies laws of physics, her fluffy dog is secretly a monster, and the only paying guest is a former Galactic tyrant with a price on her head. But the inn needs guests to thrive, and guests have been scarce, so when an Arbitrator shows up at Dina's door and asks her to host a peace summit between three warring species, she jumps on the chance.
Unfortunately, for Dina, keeping the peace between Space Vampires, the Hope-Crushing Horde, and the devious Merchants of Baha-char is much easier said than done. On top of keeping her guests from murdering each other, she must find a chef, remodel the inn...and risk everything, even her life, to save the man she might fall in love with. But then it's all in the day's work for an Innkeeper…

My Review:

After finishing Clean Sweep in nearly one sitting, I absolutely couldn’t resist pouring through the entire series ASAP. Which I did. And it was glorious.

But specifically about Sweep in Peace…this book adds depth to the world the author has created, and to the characters in the series, particularly Dina, but pretty much everyone her life touches. Or is touched by.

Dina is in kind of a pickle. As she always seems to be in one way or another. In order to remain a viable inn, the Gertrude Hunt needs guests. Her symbiotic relationship with the people who stay with her means that the more guests she has, the more powerful they are, the more she is able to do. And be.

So when an Arbitrator asks her to host an intergalactic peace conference, Dina feels that she needs to take the job. She needs the money AND she needs the guests. So even though she knows that she is literally the inn of last resort, and that keeping her warring guests from bringing the more active parts of their conflict inside her walls, she still needs the money and the guests. And hopes for an increase in the inn’s rating if she is successful, even as she knows that she has about as much chance of success as a snowball in hell.

Speaking of hell, that’s what the fight is all about. The planet Nexus is hell. Or the nearest equivalent that anyone wants to see. But the vampires, the Hope-Crushing Horde and the space merchants of Baha are all fighting over it. It may be hell, but it’s a hell that contains valuable minerals that the vampires and the Horde both want. And the merchants sit on the only land stable enough to have transportation facilities to get those minerals off-planet.

And nobody wants to give an inch of ground, even though it is in their bests interests. The vampires and the horde have both spilled too much blood, and the merchants, as it turns out, have nowhere else to go. It’s a stalemate, until Dina and the Arbitrator step in.

Or rather, until the Arbitrator backs Dina into a corner and forces her to step in. Whether she will step out alive is anyone’s guess. No one gets out of hell unscathed. Not even by proxy.

Escape Rating A: I love this series. Did I say that already? Probably multiple times?

Dina reminds me quite a bit of Marley Jacobs in A Key, An Egg, An Unfortunate Remark. Both Dina and Marley wield the same kind of quiet power. And also espouse the same flavor of “neutrality” that will defend those it chooses to the death. Of the other person. Or thing. Or whatever.

The most interesting character in this story is George, the Arbitrator. His tactics in every situation are the exception that proves the rule about whether ends that unquestionably serve the greater good can possibly justify extremely questionable means. Every once in a blue moon, the ends actually do justify the means. Which doesn’t make those means any less terrible. It might just make them even more terrible. George knows that every lie he tells, every truth he omits, every action he takes, is designed to move all his pawns, especially including Dina, into the exact right position to achieve his aims, and he does not care how much he damages those pawns along the way, as long as he achieves his goal. Which is admittedly, a worthy one. And might possibly be worth the cost. Or would be if George were the one to pay it. But he isn’t.

Normally, one says that one would not want to be on someone’s bad side. In George’s case, being on his good side isn’t actually any less dangerous.

That love is all there is is all we know of love is all too true. And terrible the lengths it will drive us to. Which is a big part of what George is counting on, to Dina’s cost.

In the end, this story comes to be about the cost of war and the price of peace. Robert E. Lee was right, it is a good thing that war is so terrible. In this particular case, it isn’t just that war is hell, but this war is on hell. And for hell. Each party in this war is wallowing in their own hell. Once they understand that they are all in it together, they are finally able to break free. Together.