Dead and Gone by Charlaine Harris

Now for those of you who have never heard nor know anything about the chick book series known as the Southern Vampire books, allow me to enlighten you about the finer points of vampire love and lore…

There are now a total of nine books that follow the trials and tribulations of the young, telepathic, waitress Sookie Stackhouse. If this name sounds familiar and you’ve never read a chick series in your life then you might know it from the hit HBO television series, True Blood. This TV show debuted last fall with an astonishing huge fan base already developing, if you haven’t seen this show, then you should, I insist, and I will have to hunt you down, plop you onto my lovely couch and force you to watch the first season. The show starts out with the knowledge that vampires are newly revealed to the mass public. They live among us and their blood lust is sustained on a synthetic blood called True Blood, so now vampires don’t pose a threat to the humans, right? Well that remains to be seen, but I am not here to discuss the TV show; I’m here for the books, so moving on…

Sookie’s first book, Dead Until Dark, is the jumping off point for this series. She is a lovely little blonde girl from the south. She lives with her Grandmother in an old farmhouse and her brother visits regularly to mooch off of Grandma’s pies. Now, there is something special about our little protagonist, she just happens to be telepathic, which means she hears every little thought of all her friends, family and patrons at the bar (which turns out to be not very nice thoughts, because they are all skeezy older men thinking she’s a cutie). Sookie hates her power, she wishes she were normal and could interact like a normal person, but everyone in their small town thinks she’s a nutter, and because of this preconception of craziness, she has never had any real boyfriends or close friends of any kind. The story jump starts when Sookie rescues a vampire from poachers (Poachers are people who trap vampires, and yes in this series you can control a vampire with silver because it hurts them). However the act of poaching is highly illegal and highly stupid because you are screwing around with a creature who can tear you apart if you mess up (so boys and girls, don’t mess with vamps, it’s for your own safety). Anywhoo… Sookie rescues vampire Bill and it turns out that she can’t “hear” his thoughts, she can’t hear any vampire’s thoughts because they’re dead and her power just doesn’t work that way. It is so wonderful for her that she gets to pretend to be normal that she inevitably ends up dating vampire Bill and the story goes on to their developing relationship and a murder investigation where her brother is the lead suspect. It’s a great book and the TV’s first season is an exact duplication of Dead Until Dark, plus a whole lot more…

Dead and Gone, the ninth book, picks up a couple of weeks after the previous book’s end, From Dead To Worse. Sookie is now blood bound (which is a crazy metaphysical soul bonding vampire magic moment) to Eric Northman (a vampire from the distant Viking era and a real hottie), she is living with two witches who drive her a little nutty, but she’s southern and she’s got real hospitality so she can’t just kick them out of her house, and she is recently broken up with her were-tiger boyfriend and so she is on the re-bound. Starting off at that point the book delves into another Great Revelation, which means that the werewolves and shifters of the world have decided to let the rest of civilization know that they exist. See, years before there was another Revelation, which was when the vampires came out of the supernatural closet. This coming out ceremony came about because the Japanese invented a synthetic blood dubbed True Blood, that could be mass produced and distributed, thereby making vampires less scary because they don’t need to feed off of humans (But they totally still drink human blood, because lets face it, that’s hot and a good bite during sex is good for any walking creature on earth).

But due to human controversy and unwillingness to accept that your friends, neighbors and family happen to be able to shift form and howl at the full moon doesn’t exactly go over as smoothly as everyone had hoped. A young woman is found crucified outside a local bar and the panic and hatred of supernatural beings ensues. Sookie is led on a journey and she ends up involved in shit that she just doesn’t want to be involved in. The end is sad, but hopeful and you’ll never guess who the murderer is. All this fun and intrigue is brought about in this new release book and I highly recommend this book for readers who follow the series. A word to the wise out there, DON’T READ THIS BOOK IF YOU HAVEN’T READ ALL PREVIOUS 8!!! I can’t stress this enough, I am an avid series reader and it is terrible to start a series in the middle, you have no idea what the hell is going on, who all these colorful characters are and you never have an emotional connection with the main chica. If this type of series is up your alley then I suggest you start off with Dead Until Dark, it is available on paperback and at all public libraries.
And now, I bid adieu, and a bit of advice: Keep reading, it does wonders for your sex life!