Wednesday, October 18, 2006

The South Rises Again With Sookie Stackhouse

Just in time for the Halloween season, a series of supernatural mysteries was recommended to me by my friend, Renee Stern.
"Dead Until Dark," "Living Dead in Dallas," "Club Dead," "Dead to the World," and "Definetly Dead" are all marvelous reads, and I highly recommend them.
Sookie Stackhouse is a barmaid and waitress in Bon Temps, Louisiana, and following the days that vampires come "out of the coffin" and prove they are real, Sookie, who is a reluctant telepath, falls for Bill Compton, a vampire made during the Civil War whom she can't "hear" with her gift. Hijinks follow, and, though she's a pretty young blonde, Sookie shows us that her spine is steel and her brain works just fine, thanks. She holds her own against the evil vampires, were-creatures of all stripe and ruthless shape-shifters, and she does it with aplomb. There's a great deal of humor, tenderness and plain old common sense in these novels, though they're placed in an exotic mileau. Harris' prose is smooth and soothingly Southern, but her characters are full-bodied and fascinating, and her plots move faster than a vampire before dawn. The romantic element is done appropriately, and I was fascinated to learn that though vampires have no heartbeat, the other parts of their anatomy seem to have all the requisite blood flow. I highly recommend the series to all who find the supernatural and the South fascinating. You're guarenteed a good read that will refresh all those who've gotten bored with the same old blood-drenched, brooding vampire novels.

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