One of my good friends has been bugging me to read this for such a long time now that I can’t even believe I’ve finally gotten to it.  You know who you are.  One of my book club buddies brought the first three books of the Sookie  Stackhouse series and dropped them in front of me saying, “You haven’t read these.  You need to.  You’re going to love them.  Well it was as lip licking as this cover, even though, I thought I couldn’t bear reading anymore stories about vampires.  Twilight and all the stories that followed, “vampired” me out.  Strangely enough, I think Dead Until Dark has perked my interest for vampires again or could it be the breeze of Halloween on its way?

Dead Until Dark is a suspenseful, intriguing, page turner with that “laissez les bons temps rouler” Louisiana flavor.  Sookie Stackhouse is a perky, blond, intuitive, waitress, who reads minds.  She lives in a small north Louisiana town called Bon Temps.  She thinks straight and to the point and that’s what’s so great about this book.  Vampires are everywhere living among the population.  They live by night, sleep during the day and drink synthetic blood, unless they decide to feed on humans.  Bill walks into the local bar where Sookie works and the next thing we know she’s on a whirlwind adventure filled with murder, passion, and a lot of neck biting incidents.

Dead Until Dark is not just plot driven.  The character development is intelligently executed.  How can you not love Sookie?  The various quirky characters like Lafayette, Eric, and Bubba add to the weirdness and darkness of the story.  You’re probably wondering how can one smile through this dark story.   I can only say Harris knows how to tell a story and she does it in the southern tradition.

A month ago before I read this book, I watched a bit of True Blood, the HBO television series adapted from the Sookie Stackhouse series and I stopped watching after about fifteen minutes because the characters all looked really ugly strange to me.  I guess it’s because I’m used to shows like Vampire Diaries where all the vampires are hotties.  Go figure.  I took one look at Bill and shut off the tv.  Eww!  Now that I’ve read Dead Until Dark, I don’t think they got the casting right.  I have something completely different pictured in my head, concerning the physical attributes of the characters.  Moreover from what I understand the first season is adapted from the first book of the series.  I presume they stretched the story quite a bit for tv, ok a lot, since Dead Until Dark is only 292 pages.  You’ll enjoy the book a lot more.   It’s definitely worth the four stars I’ve given it on Goodreads and I’ll surely be checking out the rest of this series.

Charlaine Harris is a mystery writer from Mississippi, but lives in Arkansas.  She has been writing crime books like The Harper Connelly Mysteries, The Lilly Bard Mysteries, The Aurora Teagarden Mysteries, and Gravesight Graphic Novel series for the past thirty years.  (All of these series are highly ranked on Goodreads and Amazon.)  Harris began writing poems and ghost stories and quickly advanced to her mystery novels a few years later.  Of course, Charlaine Harris’s most popular books are from The Sookie Stackhouse series and there are twelve of them.  The thirteenth and last novel of this series is due to be released in May 2013.  If you’re interested in more information on Charlaine Harris, check out her website at  www.charlaineharris.com

To send a letter is a good way to go somewhere without moving anything but your heart.

                                                                                           ——-Phyllis THEROUX