"Vampires, Mind Readers and Laughter"

Sookie Stackhouse is a cocktail waitress in the small town of Bon Temps, Louisiana. She is able to hear what people are thinking. She tries very hard to not listen. What could be more frustrating on a date than to hear what your date is thinking about you? She gives up on dating and just works her job and comes home to her eccentric grandmother.

Vampires are no longer persecuted; they are legal. When the vampire, Bill, comes into the bar and requests a "synthetic blood", Sookie is thrilled to finally meet a vampire. She is so happy to find that she cannot read his thoughts. She is attracted to him and when she saves his life, he is indebted to her. He also likes her because she is different and feels comfortable with him, as most people are not.

Sookie has a hot affair with Bill. She meets some of Bill's very strange friends and is beginning to feel a bit wary of vampires. Bill takes her to the Fangtasia Club to meet the head vampire, Eric. When women she knows are murdered in the small town, her brother, Jason, is a suspect. Her boss, Sam, cares about her and is concerned about her safety. She listens in to all of her friends in the bar hoping to help her brother by hearing thoughts about the murders.

DEAD UNTIL DARK has some wonderfully quirky characters. When Sookie is introduced to the vampire, she expects him to have some exotic name so laughs heartily when she realizes his name is just plain Bill. It does have some very funny situations. The most striking thing about this book is its originality. Sookie's grandmother is such a marvelous character. She has been anxious to meet a real "live" vampire and can hardly wait to hear his stories about his long life. Some of the vampires are very scary as well as the fangbangers (vampire-groupies). They are such intriguing characters; the reader can almost believe that they exist. The book had a wonderful ending or was it just a beginning of more books to come? DEAD UNTIL DARK is an unusual fantasy and is highly recommended.

Reviewed by Marilyn Heyman
Posted September 3, 2001

Author Interview

Summary

Sookie Stackhouse is a small-time cocktail waitress in small-town Louisiana. She's quiet, keeps to herself, and doesn't get out much. Not because she's not pretty. She is. It's just that, well, Sookie has this sort of "disability". She can read minds. And that doesn't make her too dateable. And then along comes Bill. He's tall, dark, handsome--and Sookie can't hear a word he's thinking. He's exactly the type of guy she's been waiting for all her life . . . But Bill has a disability of his own: He's a vampire with a bad reputation. He hands with a seriously creepy crowd, all suspected of--big surprise--murder. And when one of Sookie's coworkers is killed, she fears she's next . . .