Week 27 ~ Dead Until Dark

Week 27 ~ July 2-8, 2007

Dead Until Dark
by Charlaine Harris

(urban fantasy, vampire/paranormal romance)

This is the first of the Sookie Stackhouse series, and while I'm glad I read it I'm also glad I rented it from the library. It was a good book, but on the fluff side. I read it in a day, even though it was a very busy week for me, and I didn't even pull an all-nighter.

The book follows Sookie, who is telepathic, and her experiences with a vampire and a series of murders. If it's supposed to be a murder mystery, it will - in my opinion - have fans of straight murder mysteries disappointed or upset. To me, there wasn't enough of a trail (false or otherwise) to even begin to have a suspect list until far enough along in the book that my mystery-fan-side was annoyed at the lack of ideas. (My fantasy-fan-side was happy, though, so I kept reading.) The romance angle was nice in its lack of detail. There was enough to be believable and give a touch of the romance, but not so much that it fell into the "just another vampire romance" category.

All in all, I was entertained, which is the most important point when reading (for me). I doubt I will be re-reading this book, but I will be continuing with the series.