Dead until Dark - Book Review

Dead Until Dark (Sookie Stackhouse #1) by Charlaine Harris

I’m a sucker (pun intended) for a vampire novel. I remember only a few years ago, you were considered a weirdo if you were into vamp books, now its considered pretty mainstream.

This series has been on my “to read” list for a few years now, I’m a fan of Ms Harris’ other novels. So I bit (ha ha) the bullet and paid the NZ$2 to have my library order it in for me. I’m really glad I did though.

You’d have to throw a stone pretty far to hit someone who hadn’t heard of, or didn’t watch the tv show “True Blood" based on the series. There’s only a small amount of those fans loyal to the show that have takent he time to read the series, and I really believe they should.

This book introduces us to what appears to be your average southern belle; a cute, smart, friend gal with an accent strong enough to make a man weak at the knees. Yup, Sookie’s your average everyday southern lady, except that is, for her ability to read other people’s minds.

Working as a waitress in her small town of Bon Temps, Sookie lives with her grandma. While working one night, Sookie meets her very first vampire, Bill Compton.

Its about this time that things get really interesting. Sookie overhears two of her regulars thinking about draining the vampire to use his blood as a street drug much like cocaine or acid.

Sookie decides to take things into her own hands and try to help this tall glass of handsome. Sookie wins the fight and Bill realisesthere’s something different about our heroine, and she in turn realises she can’t hear bill’s thoughts. Their friendship begins.

I wont ruin too much more of the plot line but lets just say between Sookie, Sam (her boss),  Bill and a whole host of of other characters it was a pretty rockin’ start to a series.

I gave this book 4/5 Stars because, lets face it, No one writers a perfect first book in a series. One of my biggest problems with it was that it wasn’t long enough for my liking.

Anyway the characters were great, you could connect with them and imagine their “world” like theirs without too much trouble.

I’m very excited to read the next book in the series - Living Dead in Dallas.