If you’re one of millions of devoted fans of HBO’s vampire series, True Blood, and you haven’t read Charlaine Harris’ Sookie Stackhouse series, you’re missing out. There’s so much more going on in the books that inspired the series than there is on the small screen – in fact it’s a totally different experience.
Each book in Harris’ series is jam-packed with intrigue, twists, upsets, and a healthy dose of butt-kicking action. They progressively follow telepath/barmaid Sookie Stackhouse’s life since having met and fallen for Bill Compton, the first vampire her small town of Bon Temps, Louisiana, has ever had. As the months go by, Sookie gets pulled deeper and deeper into the supernatural community – which includes vamps, shapeshifters, faeries, witches, and other mythical beings – that most people don’t know exist. She also becomes an object of both ambitious and sexual desire among these various communities due to her natural gifts.
With last month’s release of Dead and Gone, the ninth book in the Sookie Stackhouse series, the story goes in an interesting new direction as the shapeshifters of the world go the way of the vampires, who “came out of the coffin” on worldwide television some years prior to the opening of the first book. Dead and Gone also ties up some ongoing storylines and leaves readers wondering, “So where do we go from here?”
WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD!!!
Dead and Gone opens on the night of the second Great Revelation, where shapeshifters of all sorts – including Sookie’s boss, Sam – announce their existence to the world. In general, the people of Bon Temps are pretty accepting of this news and the fact that many people they know and trust are of the “two-natured variety.”
Trouble soon follows when Crystal Stackhouse, a werepanther and Sookie's sister-in-law, winds up dead and crucified outside Merlotte’s Bar. Like in many of the other books in the series, Jason (Sookie's brother) is the prime suspect, especially because Crystal was caught cheating on Jason and the two were estranged.
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