Tag Archives: Sookie Stackhouse Series

From Dead to Worse (Charlaine Harris)

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From Dead to Worse is the eighth book of the Sookie Stackhouse Novels (Southern Vampire Mysteries) by Charlaine Harris. [Here’s my review of the other books.]

Plot:
Sookie has returned home from the vampire convention where her life is quickly turned upside down when Eric facilitates a meeting between her and her great-grandfather Niall, a fairy prince. He explains her heritage and promises to help her whenever she needs it. Not only that, but Quinn has been missing since the convention and Sookie not only gets drawn further into the vampire politics but gets also involved in attacks on the Shreveport Weres.

I did not like this book which made it pretty easy to stop reading the series after this one (I needed a break anyway). Maybe I’ll pick the books up again after a little while, but for the moment I couldn’t care less.

[SPOILERS]

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All Together Dead (Charlaine Harris)

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All Together Dead is the seventh book of the Sookie Stackhouse Novels (Southern Vampire Mysteries) by Charlaine Harris. [Here’s my review of the other books.]

Plot:
After Hurricane Katrina and the ending of the last book, the queen Sophie-Anne and Louisiana are in a very precarious position that is supposed to be cleared up at the long-planned vampire convention. Sookie is asked along to use her telepathic abilities to the advantage of the queen, a dangerous situation. At least she isn’t completely alone Since the company boyfriend Quinn works for is organising the convention, he’s there, as are Eric and Bill as part of the queen’s entourage. The already tense situation gets even worse when a group of vampires from Arkansas gets murdered, which at first seemingly simplifies the queen’s life. But that doesn’t hold for long.

I didn’t care in the least for the happenings at the convention. But that’s nothing new. Generally I don’t think I can say much more about the quality of the series that I haven’t said before: the plots are a bit messy, I don’t understand Sookie lots of times, and there are enough cool characters to keep me reading.

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Definitely Dead (Charlaine Harris)

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[Since the stuff I have to blog about is piling up, I’ll try to do a two post per day period. I don’t know how long I can keep that up, but in the meantime: Enjoy.]

Definitely Dead is the sixth book* of the Sookie Stackhouse Novels (Southern Vampire Mysteries) by Charlaine Harris. [Here’s my review of the other books.]

Plot:
Sookie’s cousin Hadley, the Queen of Louisiana Sophie-Anne’s girlfriend, was killed. So Sookie goes to New Orleans, leaving behind her new boyfriend Quinn, a weretiger with whom she was just attacked by a bunch of werewolves. In New Orleans, Sookie meets Amelia, a powerful witch and Hadley’s landlady. While in New Orleans, Sookie gets drawn into Sophie-Anne’s problems with her new husband, the King of Arkansas.

Oh, the usually weak plotting is even weaker in this one. But there were some important reveals in this book and it was a fine read.

*Pro-Tip: If you read the short story One Word Answer before this book, you’ll get the notification of Hadley’s death together with Sookie.

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Dead as a Doornail (Charlaine Harris)

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Dead as a Doornail is the fifth book* of the Sookie Stackhouse Novels (Southern Vampire Mysteries) by Charlaine Harris. [Here’s my review of the other books.]

Plot:
Somebody is shooting shapeshifters in the area: A young woman dies, Calvin Norris ends up in the hospital and Sam is shot in the leg. To keep Merlotte’s going, Sam asks Sookie to ask Eric to lend him bartender. Eric complies and sends Charles Twining, his new bartender to Bon Temps. Which is a good thing, since Charles, together with Claudine, saves Sookie’s life right away when her house is burnt down by a member of the Fellowship of the Sun. And then the leader of Alcide’s werewolf pack is killed and Sookie gets pulled into the search for a successor.

The book feels like preparation, building up of backstory for books to come and I can only hope that it really turns out to be that way because I could do with a strong plot for once.

*Pro-Tip: If you read the short story Fairy Dust before delving into this book, Claude’s introduction won’t be that much of a surprise.

[SPOILERS]

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Dead to the World (Charlaine Harris)

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Dead to the World is the fourth book of the Sookie Stackhouse Novels (Southern Vampire Mysteries) by Charlaine Harris. [Here’s my review of the other books.]

Plot:
On New Year’s Eve, Sookie stumbles upon Eric who is running in a panic close to her house. It is quickly obvious that Eric lost his memory. Pam, Eric’s second in command, explains that there is a new witch coven in town who tried to take over Eric’s business. When Eric refused to hand it over, they cursed him. Pam asks Sookie to take care of Eric while they figure it out, to which Sookie reluctantly agrees. But then Jason disappears and Alcide’s werewolf pack gets involved and things are much bigger than they first appeared.

As in all of these books, I couldn’t care less about the general plot of things – I’m really only reading for the relationship stuff. And since this book focusses on my favorite guy, I liked it a lot. In short: I loved the Eric-centerdness of this book. You can never have enough Eric.

[SPOILERS]

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Club Dead (Charlaine Harris)

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Club Dead is the third book of the Sookie Stackhouse Novels (Southern Vampire Mysteries) by Charlaine Harris. [Here’s my review of the first two books.]

Plot:
Since Bill started working on a secret computer project for the (vampire) Queen of Louisiana, he and Sookie have become a little distant. And then Bill disappears and a werewolf tries to kill Sookie. She is saved by Bubba who was sent by Eric. Eric suspects that Bill is in Mississippi where he shacked up with his maker Lorena. Since Mississippi belongs to its King, Eric asks Sookie to go there to investigate. Despite Bill’s apparent betrayal in going back to Lorena, Sookie agrees. So Eric sends her the werewolf Alcide and together they go to Jackson and start trying to find out what’s going on.

Club Dead is probably the best book in the series so far, even if that doesn’t make it stellar. That book has some issues. But it helps that for the most part, there is no Bill, but a lot of Alcide.

[SPOILERS]

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Living Dead in Dallas (Charlaine Harris)

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Living Dead in Dallas is the second book of the Sookie Stackhouse Novels (Southern Vampire Mysteries) by Charlaine Harris. [Here’s my review of the first book.]

Plot:
A vampire went missing in Dallas and Sookie is recruited by Eric to travel there (together with Bill) to use her skills to find out more about it. She soon discovers that the new vampire hating church The Fellowship of the Sun seems to have something to do with the disappearance. At the same time Sookie discovers that the world is fuller with supernatural creatures than she ever expected: she gets attacked by a maenad who wants to send Eric a message and makes the acquaintance of a few werewolves.

The plotting in this one is a complete mess and even though there are not many parts of the book that I liked, it was a good read in general. Most of that is due to Eric and Eric’s awesome, though part of the credit also goes to Sookie who I simply like.

[Slight Spoilers]

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Re-Read: Dead Until Dark (Charlaine Harris)

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Dead Until Dark is the first book of the Sookie Stackhouse Novels (Southern Vampire Mysteries) by Charlaine Harris and the basis for the TV show True Blood. [Here’s my first review of it.]

Plot (shamelessly copied from myself):
Sookie Stackhouse is a waitress in Bon Temps, a small city in Louisiana. And she’s also very SPESHUL, as she can hear people’s thoughts, which drives her crazy. Then along comes Bill – he’s a vampire and Sookie can’t hear a thing he’s thinking. Which of course means *snip* romance! With all the romancing, you almost forget that there’s a killer on the lose – killing girls, who slept with vampires.

The first time round I wasn’t very excited about the book. But then a boxed set lured me in and I had the first eight books of the series at home and I figured now that I bought them, I can read them as well and decided to start again with the first book. And this time round, I liked it much better.

Now on with the review that is much less of a comparison with True Blood and much more of a review than that first one.

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Dead Until Dark (Charlaine Harris)

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Dead Until Dark is the first book of the Sookie Stackhouse Novels (Southern Vampire Mysteries) by Charlaine Harris and the basis for the TV show True Blood.

Sookie Stackhouse is a waitress in Bon Temps, a small city in Louisiana. And she’s also very SPESHUL, as she can hear people’s thoughts, which drives her crazy. Then along comes Bill – he’s a vampire and Sookie can’t hear a thing he’s thinking. Which of course means *snip* romance! With all the romancing, you almost forget that there’s a killer on the lose – killing girls, who slept with vampires.

So, as you may know, I’ve watched True Blood and I really liked it. So, I can’t really comment on the book without referencing the TV show. But before I delve into the differences and what I liked better, here’s what I can say about the book itself:

The writing is depressingly mediocre. It’s not bad enough to qualify as pulp/purple prose and fun, but it’s also not good.
The characters are sketchy at best and their motivations usually remain a mystery.
That said, even though I didn’t understand Sookie, that kind of made her more tangible. In real life, you don’t understand everybody completely either, nobody goes about explaining themselves like “I’m going to kiss you  because my father left me when I was a little girl and I crave the contact with a mature man now.” And in these books, the characters don’t do that either.

Summarising, I liked the book but not as much as the show and not enough to bother buying the rest of the series. If I can get my hands on them some other way, I’ll read them. If not, not.

Now, on to the fun part!

[SPOILERS galore]

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