Tag Archives: Charlaine Harris

Fully Caught up with the Sookie Stackhouse Series

Last week I read Dead in the Family and Dead Reckoning by Charlaine Harris and have finally caught up with the latest goings-on in Bon Temps.

I last read Sookie in 2010 so it took some time for me to get back into the swing of things. It would have really helped if each book had a short synopsis explaining where the story is at till now considering the large number of characters and diverse plot lines. I could also have used a short who’s who list at the end of the book .

Anyways, I managed to catch up with the plot thanks to wikipedia. And soon I got engrossed in Sookie’s little world again.

Dead in the Family

Dead in the Family is rather a weak story by itself. In this book, Sookie and her friends are recovering from the terrible fairy war in the last book. Sookie has changed significantly from how she used to be in the previous books. She’s lost her usual chirpiness and is a rather bitter, brooding, and vengeful person.

In this book, she and her friends face a lot of family troubles. Her friend Bill is very weak and needs care to recover from the terrible wounds he suffered in the last book when he rescued Sookie. Her vampire boyfriend Eric is also facing a lot of problems – his maker and his brother are in town causing trouble.

An intriguing event is Claude’s arrival into Sookie’s home and the general larger role he plays. He seems to have changed his colors, appearing nicer than he usually is…but is this true, or is he plotting something against Sookie? Time should tell.

Another interesting growth in Sookie’s character is that she seems to be considering where her relationship with Eric is going. She seems to feel her age now and contemplates whether she should become a vampire in order to be Eric’s consort, without being a weak link in their partnership. These are some idle thoughts as of now, but it looks like this is a plot point that may be taken up in later Sookie books.

However, no Sookie book can be complete without dead bodies. And when a dead body is discovered in Sookie’s backyard it takes everyone by surprise. The vamps don’t seem to know anything about it, neither do the weres, and neither does Sookie. Mystery! The only thing obvious is that Sookie is set to take the fall for the dead body. Soon Alcide and Eric are involved while they help Sookie clear herself and find out who is the murderer.

Dead Reckoning

I read Dead Reckoning immediately after finishing Dead in the Family and immediately felt the difference in the tone of the book. This is a book where everybody hits the ground running. Or maybe it felt that way to me because I didn’t spend time trying to figure out what was happening.

One of the exciting events in the book is the dissolution of Sookie’s blood bond with Eric. This finally closes a rather boring running plot point. Hopefully, it also means that something changes between Eric and Sookie. This has been a fairly long-running romance (considering Sookie’s rather promiscuous little world). And I had found Sookie and Eric’s domesticity in the previous book rather boring.

Another interesting event in their romance is that Eric’s maker had arranged a marriage between Eric and the Queen of Oklahoma, and it looks like Eric has no choice but to marry her. This should surely ring the death knell to Eric and Sookie’s romance.

The main plot is Sookie, Eric, and Pam’s plot to overthrow Victor and take back control of Area 5. This means a massive battle at Fangtasia, which was quite awesome in the level of violence. I also thought it was really cool the way Sookie’s planning of Victor’s overthrow is juxtaposed with her planning for the baby shower for her friend Tara. Sookie sure can multi-task with the best of them .

Can’t wait to see how the next novel in the Sookie series shapes up…

If you are interested, you can read my reviews of the previous Sookie books here:

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Review of Books 7-9 of the Sookie Stackhouse Series

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I have been really lax about writing up the book reviews for books 7-9 of the Sookie books that I read last month in order to complete the Sookie Stackhouse reading challenge.

So late that I was really tempted to forget about it. But, I hate to leave stuff incomplete, and that includes book reviews. So, here I am trying to compile my brief scribblings done while reading the books into a coherent book review.

I can then satisfactorily close the lid on the Sookie books once and for all (or at least till the next book comes out ), without feeling any pangs of guilt. Is it crazy that I feel guilty when I don’t update my blog? Am I crazy? or do you other bloggers also feel this compulsive urge to blog?? Really would like to know that I am not the only one!

Anyway, now on to the brief summary and review…

Book 7 – All Together Dead: Sookie finally attends the vampire summit that has been referred to in all the previous books. She is still in the midst of a romance with Quinn but some cracks are starting to show in their relationship. Of course, there is a murder and some suspense. And a mind-blowing climax. I loved the ending, but that’s pretty much all I loved about this book. I found the vampire politics rather boring and petty; and everything resolves itself a bit too neatly. Also, I don’t like Quinn, so the romance falls flat in my book. I am also starting to dislike Eric. He doesn’t seem to have enough spine to stand up to the higher ups in the vampire community when their actions hurt Sookie. For all these reasons, this book is definitely not one of my favorites.

Book 8 – From Dead to Worse: Hurricane Katrina has wrecked havoc on New Orleans leaving the vampire population weakened. Queen Sophie is in a very weakened situation, and there are greedy vamps from across the border who are eye-balling her territory. There is also a war within the were community and Sookie gets involved in both the were and the vampire issues. She also discovers an interesting long-lost relative that gives her a renewed sense of self-understanding.

This book has so much stuff happening and so many storylines all squished up together that I just could not figure out which one was the main plot. Well, it turns out there is no main plot. There are 3 plots that run almost parallelly without any kind of intersection whatever. It is an interesting style of writing (almost like 3 short stories), but without an overriding plot, it all fell kind of flat. After reading book 9, I felt that this is almost a “bridge” kind of novel, really paving the way for the next book. All in all, an interesting read where a lot of loose ends are tied and events are set up nicely for the next book in the series.

Book 9 – Dead and Gone: In this book, the weres and the shifters decide to “out” themselves and reveal themselves in their true form. At first, it appears that humans are not very disturbed by their dual nature. But then, a were is murdered and Jason (Sookie’s brother) becomes the main suspect. In addition, Sookie becomes a target in a war among fairies and for once, she is the one that needs saving. Thankfully, the weres, the vampires, and the fairies are able to put their differences aside and work together to protect (and when the protection fails), rescue her.

This is one of the more violent Sookie novels filled with torture and murder. Sookie also seems to have taken up with Eric again. However, the more I read these novels, the more I feel that Eric is too self-centred to actually support and love Sookie. In spite of Bill’s betrayal, I feel that he genuinely still loves Sookie and this comes out perfectly in this book. Reading this book makes me wonder if maybe, just maybe there may be a reconciliation in the works between Sookie and Bill in the next book.

What do you think? Are you team Bill or team Eric? Or are you team Quinn? Or any other guy? What are you looking forward to happening in the next Sookie book? I”d love to know your thoughts.

And yay! One reading challenge successfully completed. I am so totally kicked about it

A Touch of Dead – Book Review

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A Touch of Dead by Charlaine Harris

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.

Reviews of Books 5 and 6 in the Sookie Stackhouse Series

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Dead as a Doornail

Dead as a Doornail by Charlaine Harris

Someone is shooting shifters around Bon Temps. And a news report indicates that many other people in nearby areas have also been shot by a sniper in mysterious circumstances. Although the world at large may not realize the significance of the snipers victims, Sookie and several others in the community realize that all the targets have been shifters. Once again, Jason is the chief suspect until Sookie jumps in and saves the day for him.

Apart from the shifter deaths, there is another sub-plot. The werewolves of Shreveport are choosing a new packmaster and Sookie neds to get involved to prevent any under-handed behavior during the process.

My thoughts on this book

I think this is the part in the series where it is slowly losing its charm for me. I suppose it could be because of reading these books in quick succession, but I am starting to feel that this series is sagging a little.

I could easily guess the two bad guys in this novel and everything was predicatably rather hum-ho. A new love interest has also been introduced for Sookie – Quinn, the were-tiger, who just does not capture my interest. He is descibed as big and bald and handsome, and somehow all I could visualize was this:

Not my kind of handsome, unfortunately

He also calls her “babe” and that does not fly with me AT ALL. I sense that the next couple of books featuring Quinn are going to be a real drag to get through. I just don’t like him.

Definitely Dead

Definitely Dead by Charlaine Harris

I was warned by Fyrefly’s review of this book that I should read one of the short stories called “One Word Answer”, which can be found in the anthology Bite, or in A Touch of Dead. So, I dutifully did my additional reading berfore embarking on this book. Boy, am I glad I did because this book would have been completely confusing, otherwise.

Synopsis: Sookie’s cousin Hadley, has passed away and Sookie is named her beneficiary. She goes to New Orleans to clear up Hadley’s belongings and settle all her financial and personal matters. This gets complicated because Hadley was a vampire who had been having a love affair wth the Queen of Louisiana. After a lover’s tiff, she had stolen one of the Queen’s baubles that was gifted to the Queen by her husband. This is causing a bit of a political situation among the vampire community. Sookie now has to step in and save the day for the Queen.

There is another sub-plot to this story, there is someone out there (and it is easy to guess who) with a personal vendetta against Sookie. In addition, Sookie and Quinn are now definitely seeing each other. Sookie also makes a heart-breaking discovery about Bill and herself that really upsets her.

My review: Well, there’s a lot happening in this book which I like. I also liked the introduction of a new friend for Sookie who seems really cool. I think what Sookie really needs is a friend, and not another guy. Unfortunately, she hooks up with Quinn in this one, and I really see this relationship going nowhere when nothing has been resolved with Eric conclusively. What I also did not care for as much was all the vampire politics. It just seemed a bit too contrived in this book.

Last Words: Is this series going to pot? I definitely hope not. I am still reading these books and enjoying them. But, I guess I am just not as into them as I previously was. I am going to persevere however, because I still do feel interested in Sookie and want to see where and with whom she eventually lands up.

Year End Book Meme

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I first saw this meme at Aimee’s blog, which she picked up from Lorielle and I think it’s a nice way to look back at the books read during the year and try to list out THE books of the year for me.

Top 5 in 2009

Well, here are the books that I read and absolutely loved this year. The ones that really rocked my boat…

The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga – 2008 Man Booker winner. And one of the most immoral, yet entertaining, as well as thought-provoking books I read this year.
A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini – a book that will make you laugh, cry, angry, indignant, and yes thankful and hopeful. This book touched me in so many ways, I just cannot explain.
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson – just because it breaks so many perceptions about crime thrillers. It is so much more than just a murder mystery. And it left me so looking forward to reading the other 2 books in this series.
Books 1-4 of the Sookie Stackhouse series by Charlaine Harris – because these light reads are the most entertaining guilty reads I have read in a long while.
Books 1-4 of the Septimus Heap series by Angie Sage – these books are consistently good, consistently entertaining, and really excellent reads for those times when all you want is a steaming mug of tea, and books with plenty of atmosphere, fast pace, and a dose of wry humor.

So, what were your top 5 reads in 2009?

My Thoughts on Books 1-4 of the Sookie Stackhouse Series

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Books 1-4 of the Sookie Stackhouse Series

I can’t begin to explain how much I am enjoying reading these books. I love them so much that I am actually having to restrain myself from reading them all at a stretch, and instead trying to extend the fun a little longer. As you can see though, I am not too successful in the attempt .

This post is less about the story of the books, and more of my impressions. I hope that will suffice because I really don’t want to repeat the story synopsis as so many blogs have already covered these books in quite a lot of detail.

Dead Until Dark: Reading this was very familiar to me because I have watched the first season of True Blood, which stays quite faithful to the book (except for the depiction of Tara and Lafayette). Reading this book just made me love the series all the more. The folks at HBO have done a truly awesome job bringing this to the screen. I really don’t have anything new to say about this book that I haven’t said already about True Blood. All, I can say in short, is that this book rocks!

Living Dead in Dallas: This is the second adventure of Sookie Stackhouse and her vampire boyfriend Bill. This time Sookie ends up in Dallas to find a missing vampire. As soon as they arrive, they are at once right in the middle of events and meet vampires, shapeshifters, another telepath and have to put up a fierce struggle to avoid being captured by the ominous “Fellowship of the Sun” an anti-vampire club. A second plot is the murder of Lafayette. This book didn’t fly quite as quickly as the first. Sookie’s relationship with Bill gets more complicated and you get to sense that something is not going quite right there. There are also more supernatural creatures
introduced, which brings a lot more interest. Then there are the complex explanations and devices needed to explain how vampires who can’t face sunlight travel to, for example, Dallas, which slowed the book quite a bit.

Club Dead: This book is similar to book 2, in the sense that Sookie travels quite a bit out of Bon Temps. She has to save her boyfriend Bill who has been kidnapped by some other vampires. Things get quite exciting here. Sookie’s relationship with Bill is on the rocks, and it looks like there are a couple of very hot love interests in Sookie’s future. All in all, a fun read, but I started wondering if the books were getting too be a bit too monotonous.

Dead to the World: In this book, the action moves back to Bon Temps, which I love. In addition, Sookie’s brother Jason has some more prominence. The adventure just leaps off the page when Sookie finds an amnesiac vampire Eric running on the roads, and her brother goes missing. Sookie again has to be the tough girl and save the day. This is probably the most favorite of my books so far. I really loved Eric, and I loved how the book flowed. I also started loving Sookie much more, I had found her to be getting a bit bland in books 2 and 3, but she really comes into her own here. I also liked that Sookie suffers a lot less physically in this book than in the others where she really gets beaten up a lot. There were a couple of loose ends though (for example, the fairy who seems very randomly placed in the book).

Last word: These books are not great works of literature nor even great fantasy novels. These books are for those readers who read the Twilight series and found them too wimpy. Let’s face it, Sookie Stackhouse is no Isabella Swan. She may not be as physically strong as the vampires, but she is one tough cookie who has her own skills that are very valuable in saving her and her friends from danger. The vampires have respect for her as a human being, which is more than what poor Bella managed to summon up from her little vampire coven.

What I also love about these books are that they are all fairly quick reads. The book is only as long enough for the story, Charlaine Harris has not made extra efforts to plump up the novels or try to make them more than they are. For some reason, this unpretentious writing style is really endearing to me.

What I must also mention is that these books are abso blush-worthy, by that I mean sex and promiscuity and plenty of it. If that bothers you, give these books a skip.

All in all, I am highly enjoying my participation in Beth Fish’s Sookie Stackhouse Reading Challenge

True Blood is Bloody Great!

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The ad for the series

This is a change for me. I rarely watch TV, let alone review anything that comes on TV. But, I just had to do this one…

Since reading the insipid Twilight series by Stephenie Meyer, my interest in vampire novels/ movies has drastically declined.

I am a fan of vampires but I’m also really particular, I can’t just read/watch any junk, and there is too much vampire-related junk available nowadays.

Ever since Buffy the Vampire Slayer, I’ve never seen or read anything vampire-related that’s really impressed me. I had heard of the Sookie Stackhouse vampire series of novels by Charlaine Harris, but really was not motivated to try them out after my Twilight disappointment.

All that changed when I was surfing channels on saturday, and came across the first two episodes of True Blood on HBO, which is based on the Sookie Stackhouse novels.

It gripped from the opening scene itself. It involves two teenagers stopping at a convenience store. They act very obnoxiously and are very interested in vampires. There’s a twist at the end of the scene that was really good, and within 5 minutes, I was hooked onto the series.

In this series, vampires are no longer just mysterious creatures who live in coffins. They claim not to be the blood thirsty killers. Most vampires have stopped drinking human blood and are vegetarians drinking a Japanese-manufactured concoction called “TruBlood”. Vampires are now struggling to fit into society and be accepted by others, and they are even fighting for a vampire equal rights bill in congress.

Anna Paquin as Sookie

The series stars Anna Paquin (who acted in the critically acclaimed “The Piano”) as Sookie Stackhouse, a telepathic waitress at Merlotte’s Diner in Bon Temps, a small Louisiana town. She can read people’s minds and that makes her life a little bit difficult.

Apart from Anna, there’s a strong and likable supporting cast that includes a foul-mouthed best friend, an over-sexed brother, and the bar-owner (also Sookie’s boss) who is in love with Sookie. And then, there are the bad guys – rednecks who want to steal vampire blood and sell it. Apparently, vampire blood is like some kind of drug.

The show finally starts moving when a vampire named Bill shows up at the diner much to the dismay of the restaurant’s patrons. Sookie is strongly attracted to him, and they become close when she saves him from an attack by humans who want to drain his blood and sell it.

Sookie and Bill

The rest of the episode sets up a murder mystery involving a local “fangbanger”, a sort of groupie for vampires who allows them to drink her blood. When she gets killed, the evidence points to Sookie’s brother, but the town is convinced that Bill had something to do with it. At the end of the episode, nothing is resolved, so this story line will probably continued into future episodes.

Btw, this series has been censored to reduce the violence and sex. This is info from a friend who has seen the original series…still, there are some scenes though, so be prepared for it!

So, did anyone else catch this show or read the novels? What did you think? For me, the best part was the small-town Southern atmosphere and the novelty of its premise. I also like the chemistry between Sookie and Bill. What did you like/dislike about it? Is the show better or the books?