Posts tagged ‘vampires’

July 6th, 2010

I’m faerly certain…

by candace

Rating: ★★★★☆ 

I don’t have a lot of time on my hands these days so this is going to be short.

The 9th installment of the Sookie Stackhouse Southern Mysteries was AWESOME!  Sookie finds out some interesting information about herself and of course what she learns puts her in terrible danger, actually it puts her in the middle of another war.  She has more family than she thought but this long lost relative comes with strings attached.   He hasn’t been in contact because Sookie’s grandfather forbade it but he’s dead and now the door is open.  He doesn’t want anything to do with Sookie’s brother, and can you blame him?  Sookie knows that’s for the best because her brother would try to suck this guy dry and that would be bad.  Still she doesn’t like keeping things from her brother even though he’s a butthead.

Eric gets his memory back because they destroyed the spell book of the witch who cast the spell on him?  I think I’m remembering that correctly.  Which means he remembers everything from his time with Sookie and talk about awkward!!!  Bill is still hanging around, he still loves her and is sorry blah blah blah but she’s really hurt by what she learned at the Vampire summit.  She’s not likely to forgive him enough to invite him back to her bedroom and now that Eric has his memory back would she want to? I can’t wait to see where things go with the three of them in the next book.  The end of this book was pretty intense and I think Bill proves pretty decisively that he does love her and would do anything to keep her safe.

Sookie experiences a lot of sadness in this book.  It seems that people fall in and out of her life pretty easily and there’s not much she can do about it.  I loved getting lost in Bon Temps for a couple hours and can’t wait for the next one to come out on paperback!

Dead and Gone by Charlaine Harris

June 28th, 2010

Another One Bites the Dust

by candace

From Dead to Worse by Charlaine Harris

Rating: ★★★★☆ 

The next installment of the Sookie Stackhouse Southern Vampire Series does not bring a lot of happiness to our protagonist.  Luckily, her neck of the woods has escaped the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, but the influx of refugees has changed the dynamic of her little parish a lot, not to mention the aftermath of the craziness at the vampire summit.  The only thing she’s really looking forward to is getting back to normal.  When is she going to learn that her life will never be “normal” again?  She is still playing host to Amelia who has become a great friend and confidante but a stress too.   She’s a “broadcaster” and to someone who can read minds, that can be distracting and very detrimental to a healthy relationship of any kind.  Speaking of relationships, where the heck is Quinn?  He seems to have vanished, which is quiet a feat for a giant shape shifting tiger.

Unfortunately for Sookie, she doesn’t even have time to think about Quinn and what’s going on there.  Trouble is brewing and once again, she’s in the middle of it.  Battles have started on many different fronts.  Weakness has seeped into the state after the vampire summit.  The Queen has been hurt badly, her number 1 undead guy is gone, thanks to Quinn, and the state is vulnerable to invasion by another state leader hungry for power.  Eric and Bill are busier than ever, trying to protect what is left of the Queen and her empire.  Success does not seem possible, and Eric must make a very hard decision between those he “cares” about and the power he loves.

The weres are not exactly happy about the change in leadership and now were-women are being picked off right and left jeopardizing the proliferation of the pack.  Alcide feels he must act and so does the new pack leader, unfortunately they decide to act against each other.  Sookie is able to moderate and figure out that the old adage is true: united we stand, divided we fall.  She’s sick of being at the beck and call of the pack, even though she has been granted “friend of the pack” status, it’s not all fun and games.  It means she gets their protection but also she’s bound to help them.  She’s hoping after this last bit of help she offers she’ll be exempt from any future call to action.  Ha, we’ll see.

And as if that’s not enough to worry about, her brother is causing her some serious angst, not entirely on his own but in a way only brothers can.  Sookie finds herself in yet another situation she doesn’t want to be in, not because it’s dangerous but because it means causing harm to someone she cares about and it’s her brother’s fault.  Will the incident forever change her relationship with her brother?

Lots of questions in this book which means the next one will have answers right?  What did you think?

June 10th, 2010

All Together Dead by Charlaine Harris

by candace

All Together Dead by Charlaine Harris

Rating: ★★★★☆ 

This book was so great!  A really funny thing happened though while I was reading this book.  I got so into it I read it in one sitting while the basketball game was on and at first I was just going to start it, and then I couldn’t stop.  I started to tell my husband about the book because I thought it was so great, and he was just kept looking at me with this funny look on his face and laughing at things that were not supposed to be funny.  Then I realized, these books are ridiculous, but ridiculously AWESOME!  It’s like a really great soap opera.  It’s completely over the top but so great you can’t stop reading.  I haven’t seen any of the True Blood show but I am hoping beyond hope that they put this book into the storyline somewhere because this book was fangtastic, (yeah I did).

So Sookie has a house guest, Amelia Broadway from New Orleans.  She came to stay with Sookie because she needed to get out of New Orleans because some of her magic went awry and she needed to figure out what she did.  Then the hurricane hit and then she couldn’t go back.  She’s been staying with Sookie, paying rent and being a friend and it’s worked out pretty well.  Sookie hasn’t seen much of Quinn because he’s been working a lot and traveling a lot.  She’s not really sure if things will work out if this is how often she’s going to be seeing him.  Luckily he comes for a visit and they make up for lost time.  I just love the way they interact with each other, so different from her relationships with the vampires.  I really like Quinn’s character too, he’s so much more likable.  I’m sure there are lots of twists and turns coming for them but I hope this lasts a little while at least.

All of the arrangements have been made for the big vampire summit.  One little wrinkle is that the Queen is going to be on trial for the murder of her husband the King of Arkansas.  His second in command has stepped forward stating there was a plot to overtake the state and that she never wanted to be married to him, she just wanted to have the power.  Sookie’s talents are in high demand for the Queen because there will be a lot of politicking going on and she needs all the help she can get after the hurricane left her city and her finances depleted.  I couldn’t possibly go into all that happens at the summit because it’s action packed and full of craziness.  Sookie is excited to be back in touch with Barry the Bellboy the only other telepath she knows, and they test their gifts together and realize that they are very powerful as a duo, kind of scary.  Sookie proves her worth to the vampires over and over and over.  She’s is rewarded but she really doesn’t see their “gift” as a reward.  She’s getting sucked (haha) in deeper and deeper to their world and making herself invaluable to them isn’t really going to make her life any easier.

Of course, there is man drama.  Bill, Eric, and Quinn are all there together vying for her attention.  It does seem difficult for her but every time it seems to get too hard, someone gets murdered or there is an assassination attempt, or bomb threat, or something else crazy that she has to help with.  Not because she wants to but because she feels a moral obligation to help when there are people in need, or about to be hurt and she can prevent it.  She learns some shocking things about Quinn, Eric, Bill, Barry, and herself that has her shaken and questioning everything in her life.   Something huge happens at the end of the book and we don’t really know how everyone ends up, just that Sookie narrowly escapes a potentially deadly situation, (but isn’t that a daily occurrence when you’re friends with vampires?) and is happy to be home to give herself time to process everything.

I can’t wait to see what happens next!!!

What did you think?

June 8th, 2010

Definitely Dead by Charlaine Harris

by candace

Definitely Dead by Charlaine Harris

Rating: ★★★★☆ 

Ok this book was annoying to start because the storyline of this book was actually started in a short story One Word Answer written by Charlaine Harris.  I was completely confused because I couldn’t remember the specifics from a previous book and I thought I was going crazy, I am pregnant and mommy brain is a real thing people.  Luckily, the author recaps pretty well and you can follow the story after that.

So Sookie’s cousin is dead and she left everything she had to Sookie and Sookie alone.  Which means that she has to go settle her estate, clean out her apartment, collect what’s in the bank and all the fund stuff that goes along with that.  She’s waiting to hear that the estate is out of probate so she can proceed.   In the meantime, Sookie has started dating Quinn, the shape shifting tiger she met in the last book.  I love him!  I love that he calls her babe, it brings a different quality of man to the table.  He travels a lot as apart of his job but they do manage to go out and because it’s Sookie, they get attacked by a two young weres.  No one claims to know what’s going on or why and Sookie isn’t sure that it’s her or Quinn they are after.

Soon, Sookie is summoned by the Queen of Louisana to come and see her and settle her cousin’s estate at the same time.  This is no little thing, and as it turns out Hadley, Sookie’s cousin, was in the Queen’s favor.  The Queen has recently married the King of Arkansas, not a marriage of love but of practicality?  It seems that Hadley was not at all pleased with this new arrangement and took something in vengeance before her death.  Oh, did we forget to mention that she was murdered? And in the process of cleaning out her apartment Sookie makes a startling discovery in the closet.  The young witch who lives downstairs helps shed some light on what happened the night Hadley died which is of great interest to the Queen.  Sookie is surprised by Quinn showing up to help her with the clean up and they get frisky, but soon there is more trouble.  More were’s out to get one or both of them?  The biggest thing in this book comes from something Eric forces Bill to reveal to Sookie which changes her relationship with the vampires completely.

This book was full of craziness and I loved it.  It had twists and turns and although it was a little confusing at first I found I still enjoyed it a lot.  I’m excited to see where things will go from here with Quinn, Eric, and Bill.  It seems the other men have been removed but who knows what will happen next.

What did you think?

June 4th, 2010

Dead as a Doornail by Charlaine Harris

by candace

Dead as a Doornail by Charlaine Harris

Rating: ★★★☆☆ 

***Previous book spoilers***

This is the fifth installment of the Sookie Stackhouse mysteries.  In the last book something crazy happened to Sookie’s brother Jason.  He was kidnapped and bitten by a were-panther and now he’s changed.  This book starts before the first full moon, the first time he is going to change and luckily one of the were-panthers (the leader, Calvin) has agreed to look after him and make sure he stays safe.  Sookie is thankful for his help but doesn’t want to be indebted to him because he’s made it clear that he wants to pursue her.  As it turns out there are strange things happening in Bon Temps.  People are getting shot at.  A were girl was shot and died, then Calvin Norris himself was shot, and then Sam was shot.  Things are getting out of control and Sookie is forced to ask Eric for help because Sam can’t manage the place on his own, wounded as he is.  Eric still has no idea what happened to him when he lost his memory and it bugs him to no end.  Eric sends his new bartender to help and look after Sookie.  Soon after he arrives, someone tries to burn Sookie’s house down with her in it.  Not good.

Everyone comes back to haunt her in this book.  Alcide, Calvin, Bill, Eric, Sam, and now enter the new bartender Charles.  My head spins just thinking about all the men.  On top of all of that, Sookie finds herself in the middle of a shooting spree trying to save her new were friends and her brother’s reputation, caught up in a political struggle of the local were pack as they choose their new leader, trying to come to grips with her failed relationship with Bill, helping her friend Tara out of a very strange and dangerous relationship, trying to rebuild her burnt house, trying to decide if she can ever tell Eric what happened between them and wondering if she can get past it, and oh trying not to get killed herself.

This book is action packed, a little too action packed in my opinion.  I would have liked to see some of the plot points saved for another book but I guess time line wise there are things that you just have to get out of the way.  Some things felt forced and rushed and there was a surprising lack of romance.  I was really excited for this book because of the disappointment from the last book but I guess I’ll have to hope the next one is better.

What did you think?

May 15th, 2010

Dead to the World by Charlaine Harris

by candace

Dead to the World by Charlaine Harris

Rating: ★★★☆☆ 

Ok I’ve been putting off writing this review because I didn’t really like this book as much as the others.  I knew something was up because the cover of the book has a vampire with blond hair and all the other books had a vampire with dark hair.  There’s only one vampire so far with blond hair and what is Sookie doing with him?

Sookie decided she needed a break from the vampire world, she broke up with her boyfriend and tried to get back to her normal everyday routine.  Bill goes away on business and Sookie is glad to have some time to herself.  He makes a strange request of her when he does leave.  Unfortunately for Sookie things don’t go according to plan and she ends up almost running over the beautiful blond viking vampire Eric.  He’s naked and doesn’t remember who he is at all which is kind of a good thing because the real him tries to get Sookie into bed everytime they talk.

****SPOILERS****

Sookie gets caught up in yet another vampire world problem and is forced to get involved in order to help those she’s come to care about.  Some she cares about a little too much but luckily for her he won’t remember any of what’s happened.  She gets to live out a fantasy with Eric who gives her something Bill couldn’t, of course that’s because he’s not in his right mind.  I liked but didn’t like this aspect of the book.  Is this the only way for them to be together without being together?  How will Bill react to this when he finds out?  What will she do now?  She doesn’t like Eric as Eric but Bill isn’t exactly her cup of tea anymore either.  Can’t she just find a nice normal guy to settle down with?

The story itself had a lot going on and because of that was a fast read.  We learn more about new and different supernaturals and find out there’s always more than meets the eye in this small parish in Louisiana.  I’m excited to read the next book, and the next and the next.

What did you think?