Dead Until Dark (Southern Vampire Mysteries, No. 1) | Charlaine Harris

Dead Until Dark (Southern Vampire Mysteries, No. 1) | Charlaine Harris | Totally Engaging

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Dead Until Dark (S...

	Dead Until Dark (Southern Vampire Mysteries, No. 1) Charlaine Harris Ace, 2008 - 304 pages average customer review:based on 329 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Sookie Stackhouse is just a small-time cocktail waitress in small-town Louisiana. Until the vampire of her dreams walks into her life-and one of her coworkers checks out....

Maybe having a vampire for a boyfriend isn't such a bright idea.

A fun, fast, funny, and wonderfully intriguing blend of vampire and mystery that's hard to put down, and should not be missed. (Susan Sizemore)

Praise for Charlaine Harris:

Harris writes neatly and with assurance. (New York Times Book Review)

An author of rare talents. (Publishers Weekly)

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Dead Until Dark is Very Much Alive

HBO is showing a new series this year titled "True Blood." The TV show is based on Charlaine Harris's book Dead Until Dark.

Based on is perhaps not true. The series follows the book almost exactly. I suspect that the first season is the first book in Ms. Harris's Southern Vampire Mysteries staring Sookie Stackhouse and the second season, I do hope there will be one, will be the second book.

The modern Ms. Stackhouse finds love with a Civil War veteran, Bill Compton, some 170 years her senior. Talk about a June-December relationship! Of course her friends, neighbors and some family members don't approve of the relationship. Not because of the age difference, rather because Mr. Compton is a vampire.

The Japanese have developed a synthetic blood allowing vampires to come out of the coffin and mainstream in normal Louisiana society. Gory murders galore happen and the vampires are, of course, accused. Sookie uses her ability to read minds to help solve the crimes.

Sookie is also called on by the vampires to assist in solving crimes within their community of true blood suckers, hangers-on called fang bangers and employees just trying to earn a living among the dead.

The Southern Vampire Mysteries are a mix of science fiction, horror and crime novels, a mixture I have not been previously exposed to. I am glad I have been. They are a great read. The one problem reading the books, I've bought all of them and am reading them in order, is that I know what is going to happen on HBO.

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Totally Engaging

Dead Until Dark is the first in the "Sookie Stackhouse" series of books by Charlaine Harris. I had decided to buy the first book after watching the series, True Blood, on HBO which is based on the book. I was hopeful that the book would be well-written and I was rewarded. I couldn't put it down, and finished it the day after I received it (standard shipping and it was at my door in 2 days, nice work Amazon!). I've since ordered books 2 and 3 in the series.

The writing is solid, and the story is told from Sookie's point of view. Vampires have "come out" to the world after a synthetic blood was created for them in place of human blood. There are tensions between the recently outed vampires and human beings, but Sookie Stackhouse wants to meet one. A psychic waitress who has trouble relating to people herself, Sookie is ecstatic when Bill the vampire sits down in her section of the bar she works in. Due to her mind reading ability, she is constantly focusing on keeping peoples' thoughts out of her head. Imagine her excitement when she realizes she can't hear Bill's thoughts! Throw in a promiscuous brother, a bar owner in love with Sookie, a vampire bar, a feisty grandmother and a few unsolved murders and you have a book that never lets up. It's no great literature, and I would actually give the book 4.5 stars (I rounded up) but the writing is solid and the book is entertaining, which is all it's claiming to be. You'll burn right through it and want to get to the next one. :]

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Very sexy, original, and intriguing...Very close to the TV series

I started reading it after the first episode of the TV series, the actors don't reflect exactly the character appearance but I like better the actors..
This is a great, awesome, thriller, not so scifi, sexy romance book series, you have everything in it.

It's not bad

Like other readers, I picked this one up because of HBO's True Blood series. My niece loves these and has read several volumes. I gave it a read and, well, I thought is was pretty good. Not great - but pretty good. The cover is very misleading - at first (before the show even started) I thought it was a young teen book so I didn't bother. Well, it's not.

The problem is, I read the first volume and wasn't motivated to read the others. Not really sure 'why' but I think its the way the story is presented. I read the entire Twilight series and loved it - they do not compare, so a reader cannot simply assume that if you like one you will like the others. Not that one is worse than the other, just different. Both are from the perspective of the main character, but both are presented rather differently.

I think the problem may be the flow of the story. Harris' writing style is great but gave me a little bit of a headache - I found myself sounding like I had a southern accent in my head while reading. The book is from Sookie's perspective composed of a series of short 'matter of fact' sentences, almost like ramblings of a southern girl.

The story is good, you just need to get used to the writing style.

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Updating vampires for today's times

Interesting update of the vampire story, set in the new South. Plot moves quickly and holds your interest.

reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

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