Review: Pippi’s Inn for Wandering Spirits by Erin Ritch

Pippi’s Inn for Wandering Spirits
by Erin Ritch

My Rating: 4 stars

Genre: Cozy Fantasy
Age Category: Adult
Type of romance: m/f

Blurb:
A cozy and magical tale of self-discovery, love, and the enduring bonds between the living and the dead.

Pippi Jennings has always been able to see ghosts, who she found to be rather friendly beings that listen politely to family conversations and occasionally borrow a sock from the dryer. She was the natural choice to inherit her recently-departed aunt’s inn, a popular vacation spot in Windia, Oregon where spirits go on holiday before moving onto the afterlife. When her aunt returns (reincarnated as a talking fox, no less) to help her niece manage an inn that literally has a mind of its own, Pippi finds her days filled with organizing excursions to ghost nightclubs, hosting midnight teas, maintaining harmony with the giant attic spiders, and most importantly, connecting the spirit guests with their living loved ones when they call the inn’s old rotary phone.

When the dashing yet delightfully unconventional ghost hunter Cecil Graham books a room at the strictly-no-living-allowed inn, Pippi finds herself drawn to him, even as he’s determined to unearth the paranormal secrets of one of Oregon’s “most haunted locations.” Although dedicated to protecting her guests at all costs, Pippi is torn between duty and the love she’s found in someone who understands her world more than anyone has before.

Join Pippi in her first year as the Windia Inn’s proprietress, as she learns to operate a sentient inn, tend to the needs of her spirit guests, and balance a life she’s still living.

My Review

I received a free copy through Netgalley and voluntarily reviewed it.

I really like the cozy fantasy genre and when I saw this one Netgalley I got excited and requested it. I really liked Pippi’s Inn for Wandering Spirits and enjoyed reading it. It has a wonderful cozy vibe and tells the story of Pippi who takes over ownership of the inn when her aunt dies. The book does deal with the topic of dying and could be a bit sad in places, but I felt the way it was handled and the spirits moved on was well done. I thought it could be quite beautiful and moving how the bonds between the living and dead were shown in the story.

Once I started I got quickly into the story. I liked how it starts immediately with Pippi finding out she inherited the inn and then the story continues to show her figuring out how to run the inn and with some time skips it shows almost a whole year of Pippi and the inn I think. I liked following Pippi and learning more about the inn, seeing the spirit guests as well as some life people as well.

I liked reading about Pippi and how she handled taking ownership of the inn. It was great to see how much the inn started to mean to her and how she handled her duties as innkeeper. I liked seeing her grow into their role as innkeeper and get more confidence. First looking more to her aunt for guidance before finding her own footing and making her own decisions. And I loved reading about the inn, it is sentient and it was so fun to see all the things it did and could do.

The world building stays deliberative vague, lots of bits and pieces, but not everything really becomes clear or obvious how it works. I thought that worked well here and kept it all feeling a bit mysterious. There were a few parts where I had wanted more details or answers or was a bit confused about something, but most of the time I felt like this style really worked for the book. And there are a lot of things that become more clear as the book progresses.

The only thing that bothered me about this book is the romance. To be honest I found it unnecessary and it felt more like a plot point that a well developed romance. I didn’t feel their romance, it felt like it developed super quickly and I felt like it was told rather than shown how much they meant to each other. I didn’t feel like I got pulled into those scenes, just that it was mentioned what happened and what they felt and I didn’t feel it. Which was a shame as the rest of the book is super good. I just wanted more of the romance so I could really feel it or less so it wouldn’t get in the way of the rest of the book. And the whole Halloween scene just felt weird too and didn’t work for me.

To summarize: I really liked this book, it has a wonderful cozy vibe and I enjoyed reading about Pippi and seeing how the handled running the inn for spirits. I really liked the concept of this book with Pippi running an inn for spirits. It does get a bit sad in places as it deals with the topic of dying, but I thought the subject was handled well. I liked reading about Pippi, the ghost guests and the inn. I liked how the inn was sentient and made it’s presence known in lots of ways. The only thing that didn’t work for me was the romance, I just didn’t feel their connection and depth of feelings and felt like I got told they cared rather than feel it. Luckily the rest of the book was good enough to keep me reading past the more romance heavy parts in the middle. If you like cozy fantasy books I can definitely recommend this one.

Links:
– Goodreads
– Bookbub
– Amazon

You can also read my review on Goodreads and Bookbub.