Cover

Dedication

In memory of Gerean Ejosa (Geri Reads)

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We are grateful to many people who have helped this manuscript on its journey to become a book. We would like to thank our agent Nancy Yost and the wonderful team at NYLA, our developmental editor Rossana Sasso, our copyeditor, Stefanie Chin, and our installment copy editor, Stephanie Mowery. We’re grateful to Doris Mantair for the beautiful cover and Isabeau Backhaus for the striking interior illustrations. Our world never looked so good.

We would like to extend our thanks to Kimberly Maciejczyk, DVM, for Gorvar’s veterinary care, and Rosie McGraffin and Kerris Humphreys for all things Scottish.

Thank you to the beta readers who generously donated their time and suffered through the early drafts: Harriet Chow, Francesca Virgili, Loredana Carini, and Fern DeYoung.

Most of all we would like to thank you, our readers, for your dedication to the Innkeeper Chronicles. You keep us going.

LETTER TO THE READER

This was a long fun book to write. We wanted to bring the vibrance of the Innkeeper galaxy to you, and this book has many characters, so we are providing you with a quick reference for the candidates as well as the Dominion players and most important observers. You will find it under Character List.

Those of you who followed this story on our website, when it was posted every Friday, really enjoyed the “Story So Far” summaries before each new chapter, so we kept them in.

We also included Dina’s delicious apple cake recipe from Chapter 1 and some of the funnies that helped the Book Devouring Horde vote for their favorite candidate on the blog.

1

A new adventure begins. But first, cake.

There was great wisdom in striking the iron while it was hot.

I took a sip of my iced tea and brushed a little bug off the skirt of my yellow sundress. I was sitting on the back porch of Gertrude Hunt Bed and Breakfast in a comfortable wooden recliner. In front of me our backyard spread, flooded with golden sunshine. The lawn was still green – we’d had a lot of rain this year – but the heat of Texas summer poured from the sky, bringing everything to a standstill. The squirrels napped in their nests deep within the oaks. The mice and bunnies hid in their burrows. Even the bugs fell quiet, too hot to trill. Beast, my tiny black-and-white Shih Tzu, lay on her back by my feet and snored softly. The fan in the porch roof above me was going full force, but my forehead was still sweating.

Such a lovely hot day. Perfect day to take a nap.