Dead until Dark by Charlaine Harris
I actually finished this book a couple weeks ago, but since it has been made into a TV miniseries, I thought it best to wait to review it until I had seen at least some of the TV takeoff. Boy, am I sorry I did. The book is a great, fun read best described as an adventure story. The miniseries appears to be sensationalist skin flick with bad accents and worse acting.
Anyway the purpose of this blog is to review, so here goes.
The setting in the bayou country north of New Orleans is perfect for this tale of small town suspicion, racism, romantic murder mystery. Sookie is a simple country girl working as a barmaid, but otherwise stays home a lot because of her ‘disability’. You see, Sookie is telepathic. One night in the bar, Bill walks in, and Sookie is immediately attracted because she can’t read him. But Bill is a vampire (now legal in Louisiana), and quickly the attraction becomes much more. But girls are dying, murdered, garroted. The tension mounts as the reader is convinced that Sookie is next.
OK, so the plot is not original. Stephenie Meyer is making big money out of the same story, right down to the telepathic, or not, lovers. Harris puts a much more adult twist to the tale. The sex scenes are erotic, and certainly not for the tweens that have just finished Twilight.
But Harris does not take herself seriously and neither should the reader. This book is pure entertainment, and so what! Sometimes everyone needs to read for the fun of it. Enjoy!
March 23rd, 2009 at 11:23 pm
I ‘m guessing that you know that Dead Until Dark was written in 1998-1999 and first published in 2001 ?
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and everything that’s been written in the genre since 1999 I would think has certainly been influenced by Ms Harris and Sookie.
March 24th, 2009 at 12:26 am
First Ms. Harris wrote the books BEFORE Ms. Meyer did. Secondly I read all 8 books and I liked them however there were parts that that made me feel frustrated with Sookie. I Love Bill in the Books and on the show because I can see beneath the superficial actions of the character and see the torment he suffers. I love True Blood because of the themes and messages that the show conveys but most of all I love the love that develops between the Bill and Sookie and how they thought they would never experience love but found it with each other.
http://truebloodnet.com