Dead Until Dark

***SOOKIE WARNS YOU: SPOILERS AHEAD***
***SOOKIE WARNS YOU: SPOILERS AHEAD***
***SOOKIE WARNS YOU: SPOILERS AHEAD***

Sookie Stackhouse, Charlaine Harris's protagonist in her Southern Vampire Series, is a small town cocktail waitress - who also happens to be able to read minds. The first book in Harris's series - Dead Until Dark - is a odd little book. I loved it right away, it is quirky and unique, playing off of a number of Southern tropes - small town communities, a love of Civil War history, families. But on top of that, it combines a great story with superb characterization.

The beginning of the book is quite good - within the first 20 pages we meet Sookie, her friends at the Bar: Sam (her boss), Arlene (co-waitress and best friend), then we meet Bill the Vampire. No fancy French names here - like Jean-Luc - just plain old Bill the Vampire. Immediately after that, Sookie has to save Bill from Vampire Drainers - people who use Vampire blood as a sexual stimulant - and there is nothing hotter than little Sookie attacking a couple people with a huge chain.

We then meet Sookie's grandmother - who quickly became my absolute favorite character. In the midst of all this character development, and the clear establishment of a series of books, murders start to happen. Women who associate with vampires are found strangled in their bed. And Jason, Sookie's brother, starts to look guilty.

Now, I have no problem with giving the main character a huge tragedy to work through, but if you do. Make it realistic - this was the one point I really didn't like. Out of no where - Sookie's grandmother dies at the hand of the murderer.

But we get over that really quickly and move on - Sookie and Bill start seeing each other, and have really hot sex. Again, I was not so sure on that one... Sookie didn't really seem like the "hey, I know, lets have really nasty Vampire human sex on my kitchen table in the same room where my grandmother died." But... I followed along.

The book got slow at around the 200 page mark, but it started picking up - a few revelations that I had already figured out a lot earlier. But then...

Harris redeemed herself.

Elvis (yes the King himself) showed up... as a Vampire. That was an amazing twist. I loved it. He has taken the name Bhubba because he does not like being called Elvis.

The rest of the book panned out as I expected it - although the murderer was a huge shock to me... I was really floored.

I thought for a first novel, Harris did a great job of setting up a interesting cast of character within a really unique epic type plot. I really am looking forward to getting to read the rest of the series - gonna pick up the second novel tomorrow!