ILONA ANDREWS

#1 New York Times Bestselling Author

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Surprise Snippet

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Some moments in life you remember forever. 

One time, when I was five, my parents told me that we were going on a trip.  I looked outside the window, at the grey November sky smothered with clouds, and decided that I wasn’t going. My dad brought me a pair of aviator shades, then he took my right hand and my mom took my left, and together we walked down a long hallway deep into our inn.  At the end of the hallway an ordinary door waited. We reached it, it swung open, and summer exhaled heat in my face.  I shut my eyes against the bright light, and when I opened them, we stood on a street paved with stone.  Tall terraced buildings rose on both side of us, and straight ahead, where the alley ran into a street, a current of creatures in every color and shape possible surged past the merchant stalls while a shattered planet looked at them from a purple sky.

Then there was the time when I first arrived at my own inn.  It was early spring. The trees stood mostly bare except for the evergreen Texas oaks that only dropped their leaves when they felt like it.  I had driven slowly, looking for the right address, and when the old Victorian came into view, I almost drifted off the road.  Big, ornate and nonsensical the way Victorians often are, the building jutted against the morning sky, a dark ruin left to rot.  Shingles had fallen off the roof and siding peeled from the walls in chunks. Brown weeds choked the grounds.  I knew it would be bad, since the inn lay dormant for decades, but I didn’t think it would be that bad.

I pulled into the driveway, got out, and circled the house, looking for any signs of life, reaching out with my magic, but finding nothing. I was losing hope with every step. And then, I rounded the corner.  There, bright against the backdrop of oaks and pecans, twelve apple trees bloomed, branches heavy with blossoms.  It was the moment I realized Gertrude Hunt still lived.

Today was such a moment. It didn’t have the vivid colors of Baha-char or the fragile beauty of the apple trees, but I would never forget it. Sean Evans stood in our bedroom wearing an innkeeper’s robe.

“Mirror,” I murmured.

Gertrude Hunt shifted its magic in response.  The wall in front of us liquefied, snapping into a mirror.  We stood side by side, he in the copper-colored robe I’d sewn for him and me in the blue robe my mother gave me.

Sean was taller than me by a head.  The robe covered him from his neck to his toes, but he’d left the hood down. He was very handsome, my Sean. He’d spent a long time trying to win a hopeless war.  It left scars even his body with its accelerated regeneration couldn’t heal, and the shadows of its memories still flickered in his amber eyes.  But when he was alone with me, like now, his eyes turned warm and inviting, his posture lost the coiled readiness, and he relaxed the way a man would in the safety of his own home.

I studied our reflection. Innkeeper robes came in a variety of styles, but these simple ones were our daily uniform. We looked like a couple. My parents wore robes just like this, except my father preferred grey and blue.

I never thought I would have this. When I was younger, I had imagined myself as an innkeeper of a successful inn, but in my dreams, there was never anyone standing next to me. My parents were still missing, my sister left to marry a vampire marshal on a faraway planet and took my little niece with her, my brother still wandered the Galaxy, but I had Sean.  He loved me and I loved him.  We were no longer alone. 

The blond innkeeper woman in the mirror smiled back at me.  She looked happy.

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Reader Interactions

Comments

    • Loved it can’t wait for Soo much more. And now I need to reread them all. I have Soo many questions about Dina’s parents???? Not the least on where they went but on the past……

  5. This short week will be busy as I finish up yet another term. Thank you for starting the week off well. Have a wonderful holiday with hopefully no drama.

  7. Love just what I needed after being sick and not feeling good for the past 3 days!!!! Thank you very much

    • Thank you for the snippet. Want to know what blackmail, inducement, bet, etc. Dina used to get Sean to wear a robe.

  11. I do have one burning question: since Dina has her own inn, who will inherit her parent’s inn when they are finally found ? One of Dina and Sean’s children?

  12. Wonderful to see another Innkeeper novel starting. Hoping that somewhere down the line, we get more on Klaus, too.

    • Sneaky snippet taking us to Dina and Sean…when we left Maude, Helen and Arland meeting Klaus… Thank you for this insight, though???? it makes us hungry for more????. Happy Thanksgiving, y’all!

  16. Yippee! There will be more!!
    Thank you so much and hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday. ,->

  23. Thank you. Most days I feel like I just live through, but these moments of unexpected smiles make it worth it.

  24. And it’s not even Christmas yet. I love these two and any chance to see more of them is welcome. I hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving and thank you for the lovely snippet.

  25. Beautiful. It doesn’t matter if this ever makes it into a novel, it’s a lovely moment that deserved to be written down. You rock.

  26. a snippet featuring my favoritest character? Christmas came early! 🙂 a big thanks for sharing this. it brought tears to my eyes in the best way possible – a happy surprise

  29. Thank you. I fell in love with the Innkeeper series first. Any snippetm novella or novel is always welcome. Dina, Sean, Maud, Helen and Arland are always interesting to read about. So anytime you write about them is a happy moment.

  31. I love all of your series, but there Is just something magically about the Innkeeper series. I hope you write them for years!

  33. You completely made my day. I love this couple, Gertrude Hunt and the entire cast of characters. Thanks for sharing. ♥️

  40. Thank you for the snippet. It’s a grey day in Seattle, and this brings up my spirits as I work on my final project due tomorrow for a class.

    Does anybody want to make an InnKeeper Robe pattern? Is there already one available for CosPlay events?

  42. Thank you. Whenever anyone asks “if you had to live in a book or fictional world, I immediately think Innkeeper.” Happy Thanksgiving.

  44. Thank you. This series has a soft place in my heart, as it was my very first IA read. *double thumbs up*

  45. My husband and I both love your entertaining stories. Most of ours are audio that we listen to on trips, walking the dog, or just relaxing like a child with a nighttime story. Thank you for many hours of peaceful enjoyment. We can’t wait for our next instalment for this series.

  48. I love all of your books, and always find myself reading them again and again. I can’t wait for the next book

  49. Thank you! I love Dina and Sean. They are dreamily perfect but also imperfect enough to identify with.
    I have trouble sleeping at night, because I have high anxiety every time I try to relax. I have a wonderful life, but it is a busy one and I have a lot of things I wish I had done differently every day.
    Daydreaming about different worlds helps. I can’t daydream about this one, even in a different time as a different person, because I end up with the same stresses. Your worlds are the ones I turn to most often, to help me sleep. Thank you.

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