A Touch of Dead

A Touch of Dead is a collection of short stories that fit in at various places throughout the Sookie Stackhouse series. This book is a fairly short and easy read with just the following five stories:

• Fairy Dust – Here, Sookie learns that fairies Claude and Claudette are actually the two surviving members of triplets, and they want her help in tracking down their sister’s killer.
• Dracula Night– Here, Eric is getting Fangtasia ready for the celebration of Dracula’s birth, in hopes that his idol will actually appear. Of course, Sookie is invited to the party, and of course there is some trouble.
• One Word Answer – This is the most important story in that you need to read this to understand the happenings of Definitely Dead. In it, we finally get the scene where Sookie finds out her cousin Hadley is a dead vampire. In this book, Sookie meets the Queen of Louisiana for the first time.
• Lucky – Here, Sookie and her witch roommate, Amelia, team up to figure out who has been rifling through the files of their local insurance agent.
• Gift Wrap – Here, Sookie is feeling lonely at Christmas time until she finds a pleasant surprise in store for her.

Although I enjoyed all the stories, I somehow liked Lucky the most. It features my favorite character Amelia, and I am beginning to enjoy reading about her as much if not more than Sookie. In fact, Charlaine Harris could spin off Amelia into her own series of books and that would be just fine with me :). Dracula Night was my least favorite one.

I do have an ambivalent attitude towards these short stories. I remember feeling the same way about The Tales of Beedle the Bard. These kind of books seem to be written just to cash in on an existing audience (fans of Sookie/Harry Potter). These stories just do not stand on their own.

Therefore, I will be recommending this book only for hard-core Sookie lovers only. Others are better off reading the actual novels.