"Dead to the World"
(Ace Books, Hardcover, 3rd edition, 2004, read: June 04)
"Sookie Stockhouse is a small-town cocktail waitress in small-town Louisiana. She's pretty. She does her job well. She keeps to herself and has only a few close friends because not everyone appreciates Sookie's gift. She can read minds. Not exactly every man's idea of date bait. Unless they're undead. Vampires and the like can be tough to read - just the kind of guy Sookie's been looking for.
Maybe that's why, when she comes across a naked vampire on the road home from work, she doesn't just drive on by. Turns out he hasn't a clue as to who he is, but Sookie does. It's Eric, still as scary and sexy - and dead - as the day she first met him. But now that he has amnesia, Eric is sweet, vulnerable, and in need of Sookie's help - because whoever took his memory now wants his life. Sookie's investigation into why leads straight into a dangerous battle among witches, vampires, and werewolves. But there could be a greater danger to Sookie's heart - because the kinder, gentler Eric is very difficult to resist ... "
It's Sookie's fourth adventure and this time she stumbles into it quite unforseen. One night she drives by Eric, head of the local vampire community, who runs naked and completely confused down the street. Witches have erased his memory and he doesn't remember anything anymore. Sookie takes him home with her for protection, at first only as long as the vampires and witches have sorted things out among themselves.
But when her brother vanishes without a trace and nobody can tell if those events are connected she is drawn into a fight of all supernatural creatures in the area and just can't stand aside. And all this happens when Bill, her former boyfriend, runs around in Brasil and the werewolf Alcide, with whom she got close and very personal in the third part of the 'Southern Vampire Series' still hasn't sorted out his love-life.
The good thing with the Sookie-books is that now you know the characters quite well but the story is different every time. No novel is like the other and the story doesn't get boring. To keep this up in the fourth part of the series is quite an accomplishment - other authors start repeating themselves in their second installment, or at least in book 3.
The 'Southern Vampire Series' is definitely still a 'must-read' in vampire literature!
[Dorothée Büttgen, November 04]
"Dead as a Doornail"
(Ace Books, paperback, 1st edition, 2006, read: June 06)
"Small-town cocktail waitress Sookie Stackhouse has had more than her share of experience with the supernatural - but now it's really hitting close to home. When Sookie sees her brother Jason's eyes start to change, she knows he's about to turn into a werepanther for the first time - a transformation he embraces more readily than most shape-shifters she knows. But her concern becomes cold fear when a sniper sets his deadly sights on the local changeling population, and Jason's new panther brethren suspects he may be the shooter. Now, Sookie has until the next full moon to find out who's behind the attacks - unless the killer decides to find her first ... "
In the fifth part of the series Sookie has some serious trouble with the shape-shifters among her acquaintances. Either they use her abilities for political reasons, as eg. Alcide does, or they are being shot in front of her. Two are already dead and a third has been injured. The police doesn't see the connections because they don't know that all three are shape-shifters and their investigations go into the wrong direction. But sooner or later even Sookie is among the suspects.
A good story, a bit predictable from an early stage on, but in any case an advancement of the series that is worth reading.
Fortunately I've written the above words right after reading the book in June 2006. Because today, as I add them to the homepage (some nine months later - what a shame!), I don't have much recollection of the story anymore. I would love to add some more details to the review but for that I would have to read the book all over again. And there's not enough time to do that. Or rather there are too many unread books lying on my bedside table ;-).
[Dorothée Büttgen, March 07]
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