I received this book for free from in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
Dead Until Dark
by
Charlaine Harris
paranormal fantasy in a Kindle edition that was published by Ace Books on May 1, 2001 and has 341 pages.
Explore it on Goodreads or Amazon
Other books by this author which I have reviewed include Night's Edge, Death's Excellent Vacation, Must Love Hellhounds, Dead Reckoning, Bite, A Secret Rage, Home Improvement: Undead Edition, Deadlocked, An Apple for the Creature, Dead Ever After, The Sookie Stackhouse Companion, Games Creatures Play, After Dead: What Came Next in the World of Sookie Stackhouse, Indigo, Night Shift, Sleep Like a Baby, The Pretenders, A Longer Fall, An Easy Death, The Russian Cage, Small Kingdoms and Other Stories, Real Murders, A Bone to Pick, Three Bedrooms, One Corpse, The Julius House, Dead Over Heels, A Fool and His Honey, Shakespeare’s Landlord, Last Scene Alive, Shakespeare’s Champion, Poppy Done to Death, Shakespeare’s Christmas, Shakespeare’s Trollop, Shakespeare's Counselor
First in the Sookie Stackhouse paranormal fantasy series revolving around a telepathic barmaid in Bon Temps in rural northern Louisiana where vampires came out of the coffin two years ago.
In 2002, Dead Until Dark won the Anthony Award for Best Paperback Original and was nominated for the Locus Award for Best Fantasy Novel, the Dily Award, the Compton Crook Award, and in 2001, the Agatha Award for Best Novel.
My Take
We norms certainly are gullible. The vampires claim they’re victims of a virus.
Harris uses first person protagonist point-of-view from Sookie’s perspective, so we learn all about the disabilities of seeing/hearing people’s thoughts. Most of life would be a bummer, what with office work and college life with all those thoughts running around. I can where it would be a major downer, and yet it does give one a protective advantage.
That jerky little shit Jason does sound gorgeous, but I really can’t see the appeal of a guy who’s not too bright and has “snacked on” most of the women in the area. Then there’s those video tapes.
I do love the sound of Sookie’s, er, her grandmother’s house. A family home built by her great-great-great-great-great-grandfather, one that’s been expanded on over the years. All on a nice size parcel of land with privacy all around. Heaven. Harris needs to keep track of just how many “greats” Jonas goes back.
Gran is a lovely woman with very few prejudices. She’s so excited to hear Bill tell stories of his family and what then sixteen-year-old Bill remembers of the Stackhouses back when he was still alive. Gran has brought Sookie up well with few prejudices, a good set of morals, and good manners.
“The impact of hearing about the Civil War from a survivor.”
Ya gotta love that Sookie. Yep, she’s sweeter than pie; she steps up for people; and, she don’t take no shit from anyone! I love it! And she’s trying very hard to adjust to vampire culture. Harris keeps popping in those alternate viewpoints from the vampire side that made me cringe.
Everybody passes her by until Vampire Bill takes an interest in her, and then they judge her for it. It is a sweet dream for Sookie, one that breaks when she realizes what she’ll never share with him.
Those Bellefleurs! They’re disgusting people, thinking they’re better than our Sookie! I hate it when parents don’t believe their kids.
That’s something else one doesn’t think of for vampires, how culture and mores change. It really throws Bill for a loop, unsure how to treat Sookie.
There’s murder and thrills as Harris introduces us to her human-supernatural world and its wide range of fascinating characters whose cultures clash. And I don’t just mean the vampires! Some of them there humans are pretty weird too.
There’s action, grim humor, and Sookie’s stark assessment of herself and those around her.
The Story
When Sookie encounters a blank mind, she’s curious. It’s a miracle to find someone she can’t “hear”. A blessed peace that draws her in to the miracle of dating, but also draws the attention of Eric, a powerful vampire who will do most anything to have her.
The Characters
Sookie Stackhouse is a barmaid who never had been able to go to college and whose telepathy scares the normals. Adele Hale Stackhouse is their grandmother with whom Sookie lives. Gran loves gardening! Tina is Sookie’s cat. Jason, her manwhore of a brother who works for the county, supervising road crews, lives in their parents’ house. Their parents died in a flash flood. Great-uncle Bartlett Hale is Adele’s “funny” brother. Linda was Gran’s daughter who died of cancer. Dean is a collie who wiggles his way into Sookie’s affections.
Jonas Stackhouse was the first Stackhouse to come to Bon Temps when “it was just a hole in the road at the edge of the frontier”. Minas was the yard slave in Jonas’ day.
Vampire Bill Compton is, yep, a vampire, who has recently returned to the Bon Temps area when a relative of his, Jessie Compton, died, and Bill inherited the house. The maternal side of his family are the Loudermilks. He was turned when he was thirty just at the end of the Civil War, leaving a wife and five living children. Sarah had been his sister. His brother, Robert, had died of fever. Bill’s father died while Bill was away soldiering.
Merlotte’s is . . .
. . . a bar on the outside of Bon Temps. Sam Merlotte, a shapeshifter, owns the bar and some rental houses in town; he’s also Sookie’s boss and friend. Other barmaids include the loose Arlene, who’s a friend; Charlsie Tooten fills in as needed (Ralph is her husband, and they have two daughters, one of whom is pregnant); Susie; Lindsey Krause quits; Susanne Mitchell; Amy Burley; and, Lafayette Reynold is the cook.
Arlene is dating Rene Lenier, her second ex-husband, and he claims she’s his favorite ex-wife (he’s had three); Cindy is Rene’s sister. Lisa and Coby are Arlene’s kids. Rene is a schoolmate of Jason’s and works under him on the road crew.
Sam’s customers include Mack and Denise Rattray, a.k.a. the Rat Couple, who are drainers; DeeAnne; Dawn Green; and, Hoyt Fortenberry, who is Jason’s best friend. J.B. du Rone is gorgeous and dumb as a box of rocks. He had gone to school and dated Sookie. He works at his dad’s auto parts store when he’s been fired.
Everlee Mason keeps Gran informed of the grandkids’ doings. Portia Bellefleur is Andy’s sister and a lawyer. Terry Bellefleur is a second cousin who has PTSD from Vietnam and subsists solely on a government disability. He substitutes as a bartender as needed. Old Mrs Bellefleur is their grandmother and the grand dame of Bon Temps. Sterling Norris is a longtime friend of Gran’s and the mayor of Bon Temps. Maxine Fortenberry, Hoyt’s mama, is the president of the Descendants. Maudette Perkins got around; she worked at the Grabbit Kwik. Liz Barrett. Sookie mentions Antoine, Basil, and Langford.
Detective Andy Bellefleur — his family has been around for as long as there’s been a Bon Temps. Bud Dearborn is the suspicious, bigoted sheriff. Jean-Anne is Bud’s daughter who had “dated” Jason. Officers Kenya Jones and Kevin Prior are a team. Mike Spencer is the parish coroner and funeral director of the Spencer and Sons Funeral Home. They mostly bury whites. Sweet Rest is the other funeral home, and it mostly buries Blacks. Sid Matt Lancaster is a local lawyer with a rep for aggression; Elva Deene is Sid Matt’s wife.
The various clubs of Bon Temps include the Descendants of the Glorious Dead and the Bon Temps Gardening Society both of which to which Gran belongs. I do love history and when Bill does his presentation for the Descendants, an old man asks him if he knew his great-grandfather, Tolliver Humphries. A sad story. The Crawdad Diner is a dive with great food. Dr Sonntag works at the hospital.
Fangtasia is . . .
. . . the bar with a bite, a vampire-run bar owned by Eric Northman, a striking yet scary blond vampire. Pam, Eric’s scion, greets people at the door. Long Shadow, an American-Indian and the third partner in the bar, is the vampire bartender. Bruce is their human accountant. Lillian is Bruce’s wife, and they have two kids, Bobby and Heather. Ginger and Belinda are some of the human waitresses.
Diane, Liam, and Malcolm are icky friends of Bill’s. Harlen Ives is a vampire in transit from Minneapolis. Desiree, who has met Jason before, is a gift, a “special vintage”, from Eric. Bubba is sort of a pass-around vampire. When he was brought over his body was too riddled with drugs to come out mentally healthy and is guarded and passed from one vampire territory to another. He “likes” cats. And he hates being recognized, thankyouverymuch.
Roedale and Homulka are nearby towns. The Japanese had developed a synthetic blood that will keep vampires alive. Mainstreaming is when a vampire is trying to live among humans. Fangbangers are vampire groupies. New Orleans is a mecca for vampires. Blood in the Quarter is a vampire hotel.
The Cover and Title
The cover is dark with a mostly deep purple and lilac sky with a cartoonish vampire wrapping Sookie in his black cloak, feet dangling underneath as they float across a narrow landscape with a tiny white burning house. At the top is an info blurb in white with the publisher’s logo in white on the far left. To the right of their necks is a left-rounded marker in an orange-yellow with the series info in purple. The rest of the text is in white with another info blurb below the marker and the author’s name below that. The title is below that in a knobby, cartoony font that looks written in chalk.
The title indicates any vampire’s state, for they are Dead Until Dark.
