Sweep of the Heart (Dramatized Adaptation)

Innkeeper Chronicles, Book 5

By: Ilona Andrews

Narrated by: full cast, RJ Bayley, Robb Moreira, Cody Roberts, Nora Sofyan, Danny Gavigan, Zeke Alton, Wyn Delano, Karen Novack, Elena Anderson, Terence Aselford, Gail Shalan

Length: 11 hrs and 8 mins

Publisher's summary

From the New York Times #1 bestselling author, Ilona Andrews, comes a fun and action-packed new adventure in the Innkeeper Chronicles! We invite you to relax, enjoy yourself, and above all, remember the one rule all visitors must obey: the humans must never know.

Life is busier than ever for Innkeeper, Dina DeMille and Sean Evans. But it’s about to get even more chaotic when Sean's werewolf mentor is kidnapped. To find him, they must host an intergalactic spouse-search for one of the most powerful rulers in the Galaxy. Dina is never one to back down from a challenge. That is, if she can manage her temperamental Red Cleaver chef; the consequences of her favorite Galactic ex-tyrant's dark history; the tangled politics of an interstellar nation, and oh, yes, keep the wedding candidates from a dozen alien species from killing each other. Not to mention the Costco lady.

They say love is a battlefield; but Dina and Sean are determined to limit the casualties!

Adapted from the novel and produced with a full cast of actors, immersive sound effects and cinematic music!

Performed by Nora Sofyan, Danny Gavigan, Zeke Alton, Wyn Delano, Karen Novack, Elena Anderson, Terence Aselford, Gail Shalan, RJ Bayley, Robb Moreira, Cody Roberts, Khaya Fraites, Crystal Lee, Marni Penning, Richard Rohan, Gabriel Michael, Tony Nam, Ryan Carlo Dalusung, Chris Davenport, Shravan Amin, Bradley Foster Smith, Tia Shearer, Torian Brackett, Samantha Cooper, Jon Vertullo, Nicole Perez, Michael John Casey, Holly Adams, Peter Holdway, Rob McFadyen, Debi Tinsley, Rose Elizabeth Supan, Mort Shelby, Charlie Albers, Elias Khalil, Alejandro Ruiz, Andrew James Spooner, Aure Nash, Scott McCormick, Nhea Durousseau, Eva Wilhelm, Henry W. Kramer, Morgan Dalla Betta, Helen Day, and Yasmin Tuazon.

©2022 Ilona Andrews (P)2024 Graphic Audio LLC

Another winner

i desperately want to hear more on this series. it's so good. i want crazy about the new voice actor doing Sean's voice, but the new voice actor was adequate. I'm sure part of it is just what i has gotten used to, but the previous voice actor just had more character and range. that being said, the rest of it was acted and narrated amazingly.

this entire series has been some of the best audiobook listening I've ever experienced, and I've listened to a lot of them. get them all, you won't regret it.

An amazing performance of a great story

2/26/24 reread

Again the graphic audio was a wonderful way to experience this world. I really enjoyed the whole spousal search with all the sound effects and different narrators. I highly recommend this series in graphic audio format.
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Series: Innkeeper Chronicles #5
Rating: 4 stars - It was really good

Dina DeMille and Sean Evans life gets very chaotic when Wilmos, Sean’s werewolf mentor, gets kidnapped. But to find him they have to first survive hosting an intergalactic spouse-search for one of the most powerful rulers in the Galaxy.

This was wonderful. From the very beginning, I didn’t want to put this book down, but I also didn’t want it to end. Dina and Sean are hosting a huge group of people, all of which live to kill their enemies. I don’t enjoy spouse searching shows, but Andrews made this whole situation exciting and intense. I think it helped that the aliens who are participating in this spouse-search were all very interesting and deadly. We also get to see the return of the vampires, the Otrokar, and the Merchant Clan.

We finally learn more about Caldenia and why she has to stay at Gertrude Hunt. It was great finally getting to learn about this lady who has been a constant present throughout this book. I was very surprised by what we learned about her. Dina also finally gets some information about her parents' inn and I really can’t wait to see how she deals with that information in the future.

“Sometimes you say things that make me wonder about you.” “No need to wonder. I’m a simple man. I love you and I will protect you. And the inn. Even if I have to murder Caldenia and everyone else to do it.”

My favorite part of this book was seeing Dina and Sean work together to host this event. They have always had a strong connection but in this we really see them work in harmony to create with Gertrude Hunt and protect their residents. I just loved seeing them work together and lean on each other during the hard times. I really want more stories of these two hosting aliens and dealing with difficult cases.

My only complaint was that I wasn’t a fan of the recaps at the beginning of each chapter. I can understand why that was handy when this was a serial and coming out every week but for a novel format, I think it was just useless. I skipped it after the first chapter.

Paints a Great story in Brilliant Colors

What a plethora of great voice talents! It’s so easy to keep the different Characters straight. This graphic audio series let me enjoy one of my favorite authors’ series All Over Again!

Still the best

I love this series and I absolutely adore the Graphic Audio version. It really just brings the story to life.

A wonderful addition to this great series

I have listened to both the original and the graphic audio version of this book. I preferred the graphic audio adaptation and the actors were absolutely perfect for their roles. I highly recommend this engaging series in graphic audio format.

This is the 5th book in the very strong Innkeeper series. Ilona and Gordon Andrews excel at story-telling, world building and character development. They are particularly good at providing wonderfully diverse supportive characters that are well crafted and add much to the story line.
This story gave us a wonderful glimpse of Dina and Sean settling into their life together and learning to manage the inn as a partnership. Of course, life is never dull for Dina and Sean and in an attempt to rescue a kidnapped friend, they must host a very complicated and risky spousal selection event for The Dominion. Not only are we introduced to some fascinating new characters it is particularly entertaining that some of the wonderful supporting characters are included as well (George, Gaston, Tony, Caldenia, Orro, Marais, etc). We need more Gaston! We also get a fun resolution to the Costco Lady (from Book 1).

We still don't have a resolution to the overarching storyline of Dina's missing parents but this book provides some tantalizing information regarding this mystery in the final chapter. I know some readers are getting frustrated with not having everything resolved into a pretty package but I am totally onboard with the authors not solving the big mystery yet as long as they keep writing these wonderfully crafted and wildly entertaining stories.

It truly is a movie for your mind!

As always, Graphic Audio did not disappoint- this is an amazing audio version of the 5th book in the Innkeeper series

Good Rendition.

Loved this series both dramatized and by the other narrator. This is the second time I listened to the story and the first time around there were a lot of new characters to figure out and with this time I was able to figure out who is who a lot better. I pretty much love everything Ilona Andrews puts out. Next is to start Clean Sweep’s Graphic Novel. In my opinion Gustan’s narrator stole the show.

Still bloated, less tedious than standard audio

The graphic audio format cut five hours off the story compared to the standard single narrator format.
It also fixed some of the issues I had with the voicing of characters like Gaston, who sounded like a smarmy hillbilly (think Water Boy’s “oh no! We suck again!”). This format also eliminated the weird chapter intros by Caldera channeling Lady Whistledown from The Bridgertons. I much preferred this audio format. Unfortunately, in either format, the story itself was disappointing.

Roughly 95% of this book was an intergalactic reality show combining The Bachelor with politics.
As someone who avoids both reality TV and political minutiae, I found this book tedious.
There’s one part where the competitors play a board game about empire building … and I swear it was an entire hour explaining each competitor’s strategy and who won or lost based upon the civilization built.

Yes, the author-duo was very creative in coming up with twelve competitors, each with fascinating features (one’s literally a fish … think Minion from Megamind), and each with some backstory or agenda. It was a disco ball: sparkly and fun, but painfully bright the longer you’re under it.
Schemes within schemes. Names and factions and made up intergalactic etiquette.
Everything flashing for 10 hours in my brain. Trying to follow and stay invested just gave me a headache.

5% of this book, at the very beginning and end, was the search for Sean’s werewolf mentor and the usual breadcrumb about Dina’s missing parents and The Corruption. The reasoning behind the kidnapping made zero sense. This series-spanning arc is proving to be an unsatisfying, cruel tease.
Further, because this arc hasn’t been properly attended to, this book had to stop for huge info dumps to remind us of the “big important stuff” that happened in previous books.

There were a few gold nuggets (Caldera’s backstory and one HEA come to mind), but they were too little to get this past okay for me. I think this series could get back on track if it limited itself to one or two new aliens per book, less intergalactic politics and more fun and whimsy. With the shorter length of the graphic audio format, I would at least be willing to give the series one more book.