Dead and Gone by Charlaine Harris

The weres go public and local bigots get evil. Jason is suspected of something, and the FBI is nosing around asking about Sookie. This one ends about one hundred pages short of where it should have, feeling a bit rushed.

From Dead to Worse by Charlaine Harris

Gosh, let’s see… There is upset in the vampire kingdom following the incident in Chicago. Sookie is trying to lay low in Bon Temps, but Mrs. Harris has other things in mind! Good surprise ending.

All Together Dead by Charlaine Harris
Sookie goes to Chicago as a servant of the vampire queen. I won’t tell you what happens there, cause it’s soooo awesome!

Definitely Dead by Charlaine Harris

In Definitely Dead we meet Quinn the Weretiger! He’s pretty cool! But this novel is a little weird because there is a missing chunk of time between the previous novel and this one. And for Mrs. Harris, who has almost nothing happen offscreen ever, this is puzzling. Add this to the lack of numbering on the books, and I found myself wondering if I’d somehow skipped one.

But no indeed, apparently a few of Sookie’s adventures just fell on the cutting room floor, to later be included in a book of short stories. But Charlaine didn’t both to rewrite any of this to make it any more clear. And it didn’t really matter. By this point in the series, the books are all so far from stand-alone fictions that you wouldn’t be here unless you’d already read the rest and were hooked.

Dead as a Doornail by Charlaine Harris

Just when you thought the naming of the novels couldn’t get much worse, you realize that Mrs. Harris is just grabbing for any phrase with the word “Dead” in it! But that doesn’t much matter, because by this time you are hooked on the wacky world of Bon Temps, Sookie, and all her supernatural friends. Now Jason gets involved with a werebitch, and I think we meet faries and demons for the first time.

Dead to the World by Charlaine Harris

Sookie’s involvement with Alcide gets her wrapped up in werewolf pack-succession politics. There’s also a sniper in Bon Temps blasting non-humans!

Club Dead by Charlaine Harris

Club Dead flags a bit, because nothing much happens. Sookie goes down to New Orleans
and we get a deeper understanding of the were community. She gets involved with Alcide H., a wearwolf contractor. (Oh yeah, the books really are that steeped in the PWT culture of the south.) A few people (and nonhumans end up dead.)

I should mention that it’s irritating that while the books are definitely meant to be read in chronological order, there is no system of numbering on them. (Sookie Stackhouse #3, for example.)

Living Dead in Dallas by Charlaine Harris

Sookie goes to Dallas to help out Erik and gets involved with the vampires there. She causes trouble for the Fellowship of the Sun. Every bit as much fun as Dead Until Dark.

Dead Until Dark by Charlaine Harris

Wow was I not ready to read anymore pulp vampire crap. But I picked it up after The Professor’s recommendation that it “really wasn’t like Twilight.” And sure enough, it isn’t.

Dead Until Dark is the first of the Sookie Stackhouse novels, named after their heroine, a telepathic waitress living in Bon Temps, Lousiana. It also forms the basis for the (fairly divergent) HBO television series True Blood.

Sookie is a great heroine, grandly entertaining and likable. Bon Temps and the supernatural dirty south around it are brought to life with a smile, a dirty joke or ten, and a lot of sly humor by Mrs. Charlaine Harris, whose picture on the back of each book make her seem like someone who would be great fun to share a drink with.

Dead Until Dark is barely a novel at all, weighing in at barely two hundred pages. It introduces us to Bill, Sookie, Erik, Jason, Sam, Tara, and the rest of the Bon Temps regulars at Merlotte’s Bar, epicenter of the Sookie Universe. We also meet drainers, the Fellowship of the Sun, and at least a few weres. The written is silly, the plot is silly, but the sex and violence are high and the characters are exceedingly likeable. The murder mystery component of the first few books make for a fun whodunit, and the books tie together nicely.