This Rec League comes from Rachel:
Hi! I’m looking for books with female innkeepers. I love the Innkeeper series by Ilona Andrews. I particularly enjoy how those books center around the guests. Romance can be the main plot point or a lesser part. Thank you!
Sarah: Born in Ice by Nora Roberts. ( A | BN | K ) It’s the second in a trilogy so the full story of the sisters’ lives begin in Born in Fire. But I love Born in Ice because of how much the heroine loves creating a tranquil temporary home for guests
Shana: Does Mrs. Martin’s Incomparable Adventure count? The heroine runs a boarding house.
I also really love Lily Among Thorns by Rose Lerner ( A | BN | K | G | AB | Scribd ). Most of the book takes place in Lady Serena’s hotel, so there’s plenty of interaction with the guest…and since she’s a criminal mastermind as well as an excellent hotelier, I loved seeing her so powerful and in her element.
What books would you suggest? Let us know!
It seems that I’ve read a lot of contemporary romances where the heroine owns/runs a B&B, but the only one that pops into my head right now is the one I just finished: Skye Warren’s BEHIND CLOSED DOORS, a romantic-suspense novella. The heroine runs a B&B in coastal Maine. However, it’s off-season, so you don’t see the heroine interacting with the guests (other than the hero). Warren manages to pack quite a bit of suspense (not to mention sexytimes) into this brief story. It’s not quite as dark as much of Warren’s work and has a bright HEA. It’s also a quick read (I finished it in a few hours).
There is a female innkeeper in my favourite K.J. Charles book, Jackdaw. It’s an M/M romance, set in a magical version of Victorian England, but more down-to-earth than some of her other novels. In fact, I found the characters in this one heart-wrenchingly realistic, despite the fantastical elements. The innkeeper is a secondary character but the inn as a setting plays a fairly large role in the second half of the novel.
THE PALACE OF ROGUES series by Julie Ann Long. A widow inherits an abandoned dockside brothel & turns it into a boarding house, eventually running it with her late husband’s mistress.
You might enjoy Tanya Huff’s Keeper series. It’s a long time since I read it, but the first one (Summon the Keeper) is set in a guesthouse which the heroine ends up owning (I think). There’s a cat and a portal to hell and a bit of romance (f/m, at least for the main characters, not sure about the rest, a lot of her books have gay or bi characters). I can’t remember to what extent the guesthouse appears in the rest of the trilogy. It’s cheerful and funny, and I may have to dig it out to read again.
Tanya Huff wrote The Keeper series, which I enjoyed, and starts with SUMMON THE KEEPER. The description from GoodReads is here:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/60738.Summon_the_Keeper?from_search=true&from_srp=zngqHEo8GJ&qid=3
@Dar6: I did not change my name, but my keyboard appears to have a mind of its own.
@Darlynne: Well, this is weird. I typed a comment about Tanya Huff’s Keeper series, which showed up as having come from Dar6 and included a GoodReads link. My follow up post to Dar6 is here, but my original post is gone, and I’m off to walk through whatever portal or wormhole is opening behind me.
Erica Ridley’s Love Letters by the Sea features an inn/boardinghouse keeper as the main character. The book is #4 of a 4-book linked set called The Siren’s Retreat done with Grace Burrowes.
I will note that while I enjoyed books 1-3 to varying degrees, I can’t reco this one: I DNF’d it at around 25% because the amount of secret-keeping and screw-the-heroine-ing by the “hero” (and others) was already getting to DEFCON levels, and I feared for the safety of my kobo. There may be a/many good grovel[s] somewhere further in, but I never got that far. Someone else may like this plot, so enjoy in gezunte heit.
Yeah, I was going to suggest Palace of Rogues, too.
Nora Roberts definitely has a few innkeepers in there. The heroine of the first book in the Inn Boonsboro trilogy is the innkeeper of the establishment in question (which is based on the inn Roberts actually does own in Maryland, I’m pretty sure that Roberts owns the majority of that town, and good on her).
It’s not romance per se, as the character has serious trauma from an abusive marriage, but Anne Bishop has at least two books in her Others series that rotate around a character that is running an inn and acting as a go-between for the human and supernatural populations in her community: Lake Silence and Crowbones. I’ve read both recently and really enjoyed them.
DEACON by Kristen Ashley.
Wellll, Exit Strategy by Kelley Armstrong has a female innkeeper (in Canada, wwiw). However, there is minimal interactions with guests, aus the focus ist in her second job – as an assassin. There is a slowburn romance, more of that in the second novel Made to be Broken.
In Twice Tempted By a Rogue, the second in Tessa Dare’s Stud Club trilogy, the heroine is an innkeeper.
I don’t think there’s a romance and it’s more so a fantasy web novel/serial. The wandering inn
I second @Crystal’s suggestion of the Anne Bishop books.
Much of my young life was spent in hotels and motels as my father was a hotel manager. If you are interested in reading a book of hotel humor, I recommend Shelley Berman’s A Hotel is a Place…. My father used to hand out copies to disgruntled guests.
If you like cosy mysteries,The Inn at Holiday Bay mysteries by Kathi Daley are pretty entertaining. There’s a romance element, but they are mysteries at heart. I like that there are different guests at the Inn for each novel and they sometimes play a big part, sometimes small. The first one is Boxes in the Basement when the heroine,Abby, buys and starts the Inn. Abby is a bestselling mystery author. They are on Kindle Unlimited.
I third the two Anne Bishop Lake Silver books but highly suggest reading the entire Others series due to worldbuilding background. I’d go stay at The Jumble with Miss Vickie! In a more contemporary vein, and it’s a resort rather than an inn, but I’ll toss Roxanne St. Claire’s Barefoot Bay series set on Mimosa Key, Florida into the ring.
Julie Klassen’s the Innkeeper of Ivy Hill.
Jenny Holiday’s Matchmaker Bay series begins with Mermaid Inn, about a woman who inherits an inn in a small town. I believe the inn is under renovation for most of the book rather than actively receiving guests.
Act your Age, Eve Brown is set in a B and B, and I recall the guests being part of the story. It’s lovely – family and building up of self.
It’s not a book, but the K-drama Hotel de Luna has a female protagonist who runs a hotel for ghosts.
So Close by Serena Bell features a female innkeeper of a quirky inn that she had hoped to buy from the owner but then learns that the controlling interest is actually owned by his grandson, a tech entrepreneur who needs to sell it to finance his failing business. She challenges him to spend a week at the inn fully participating in various activities with the other guests before he sells.
Can’t Buy Me Love by Janet Elizabeth Henderson features a heroine w/ a degree in hotel management who gets blackballed for rebuffing her boss and the only job she can get is at a small inn in a quirky little town in Scotland. This was a fun read because she’s quite competent, but doesn’t actually like people all that much. Her hero is a cinnamon roll who kind of loves her somewhat “prickly” personality.
Jill Shalvis’ first three Lucky Harbor books feature three sisters who inherit a ramshackle inn. The books are mainly about their romances, getting the inn off the ground, and them learning to be sisters (they had different dads and didn’t grow up together). I don’t recall how much interaction there was with guests but I enjoyed all three books.
I just spotted this free kindle book that meets the theme: One Simple Wish: Return to Lighthouse Point (Charming Inn Book 1)
by Kay Correll.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B082L62BZF?notRedirectToSDP=1&ref_=dbs_mng_calw_0&storeType=ebooks
I second (or third) Lake Silence books by Anne Bishop. here are a couple of others to add to mix.
Till Death by Jennifer Armentrout (daughter comes home to help mom run B&B. Major TWs. Serial killer)
Lure of Oblivian by Suzanne Wright (shifter romance. setting is in B&B run by human family.)
I feel like there are a couple of others tickling my brain. I’ll post them if I can bring them up from the dregs.
The Wandering Inn. https://www.amazon.com/The-Wandering-Inn-5-book-series/dp/B099JFQ9YR.
Not a romance, but a fantasy web serial featuring Erin, a modern day 20-something who gets transported into a fantasy world and becomes an innkeeper there.
I was surprised nobody mentioned it above but maybe there isn’t much cross-over. The audiobook versions are well-done, too. And just the first book is 24+ hours.
The two that come to mind are not new, so YMMV:
Grand Passion by Jayne Ann Krentz ( with musings on a screwdriver that still stay with me)
Cover of Night by Linda Howard
@Jeanette I was also going to mention a Grand Passion by JAK! It is (was?) a favorite of mine. Read it when I was working at a small hotel on the Pacific Northwest coast in the late 90s as a very new adult and wishing my life were as interesting. Also loved the hippy womens collective that bakes for the MC at the inn. Not sure if I’d enjoy it as much now-older JAK can be hit or miss for me on rereading in the 2020s…
I’d say try out a sample & see if it works for you before buying (or I’d bet there’s a copy available at the library)
Julie Anne Long’s latest series, The Palace of Rogues, is historical taking place at a boarding house. First two books in the series are about each of the owners of the boarding house—lord dies and his wife and his mistress open the boarding house together.