Abandoned by Booklikes

Update: Read the published full length novella and oh boy. I loved it. I loved it! I loved that Ilona Andrews gave us Maud's POV at the beginning, prior to her going off with Arland to his House's planet. We get to see how she carried herself more prior to Dina finding her and Helen. We also get to see her first impressions of Arland and Sean. And we even get to witness them sparring. I loved seeing the illustrations in full cover in my Kindle too.

I can't wait for the next InnKeeper!

Original review: Wonderful! The Innkeeper Chronicles books are becoming a favorite of mine. This free novella released on Ilona Andrew's website gave us a look at Dina's sister Maud. We heard some of which Maud had to endure in the last book, this one shows us though why she is so reluctant to give in to loving Arland and marrying another vampire again. The only reason why I gave this four stars though is that I thought the flow was a little lacking between chapters. I am prepared to raise this to five stars when the full novella is released.

After the events in the last book, Maud agrees to go with Arland to his House's planet. Maud is afraid to hope for anything more really after what happened to her and Helen when her husband cost them everything. If I were Maud, I would probably be bitter forever. I don't know if I would want to be courted by a vampire either. However, we get enough scenes between Maud and Arland to know she's fighting loving him. He is everything different than her late husband was (in a good way). I usually don't like to read romance books with a widow, but Maud's husband was an ass so good riddance to him.

Helen gets enough scenes in this one to make her a favorite with readers I can see.

Arland's mother and his mother's husband were a bit frightening, I did love how quickly Arland's mother came to view Maud as a wonderful asset to their house. And her love of Helen was great to see. I want so many stories with this family!

I also loved how this book focuses more on vampire politics and we learn more about them in this one. We also get to see Maud finally get the acknowledgment of how worthy she is when it comes to Arland's family.

I really do want a stand-alone book explaining the innkeepers, vampires, and other alien species our characters have met so far in these books.

The writing was good, will not say much about that though. Reading this on the author website you will probably see some typos. I won't say anything about that in this review. The flow as I said wasn't great. I think it will get all smoothed out in the final version. I also love how these books incorporate pictures into the final version. I wish more books did that.

The ending was top notch and we are left with a dun dun dun (in a good way) when Maud gets an unexpected visit.