My first foray into the Sookie Stackhouse series which has been made into HBO's True Blood (which I probably won't get from Blockbuster for a few more years). This was actually a cute book, not serious or heavy. Something of a beach read.

Sookie is a waitress in a local bar and has the unique ability to read minds. She does her best to stay out of people's heads and even calls her ability a "disability". Vampires have just become legal citizens and the folks in Bon Temps are eager to see their first vampire.

Enter Bill. How that's a name for a vampire, I don't know, but his name is Bill. Bill and Sookie end up as a couple while trying to figure out a series of murders that have suddenly happened in Bon Temps.

Quick read, cute characters. ( )

Best of book of the series as far as I've read. ( )

I think Dead Until Dark had the possibility of being a 5 shot book, but I watch True Blood. I spent the majority of the novel wondering where Tara was, comparing the actors to the characters in the book and wishing they had used Bubba in the show. Had I not watched the show first, I really believe this book would have been amazing. The book is still very good and I picture Sookie more Jessica Simpson than Anna Paquin now. It was fast, easy, fun and has the potential of being very exciting for someone who hasn't seen the show yet. ( )

Introducing Sookie Stackhouse - mild mannered barmaid in Bon Temps, Louisiana - who just happens to be telepathic...and a bit more (that is not fully explained in this book). When she saves the life of a Vampire, Bill Compton, her life begins to change in ways she could never have predicted. Sexy, engaging - this book is difficult to put down. ( )

In general, I am wont to make scathing deprecations of vampire books. Historically, I have preferred to think of myself as sticking to a program of self-improvement suggested to me so many years ago by Benjamin Franklin’s Autobiography. But really, sometimes one just wants to have fun.

Dead Until Dark is the first book of this mystery series that features Sookie Stackhouse, a saucy, telepathic blonde, blue-eyed, 25-year-old barmaid from northern Louisiana who falls for a vampire named Bill. Bill is tall, dead, and handsome; preternaturally strong and correspondingly unhumanly gentle; and filled with a longing for love that has been building for centuries.

The author of the Sookie Stackhouse books (adapted by HBO into the series “True Blood”) has a delightful sense of humor and an impish imagination. She portrays vampires as having a social status analogous to gays: vampires can now be “out of the coffin” (read: closet); there is controversy over how they got to be that way; there are politically correct ways to refer to them; there are hangers-on called “fang-bangers” (read: fag-hags); and there is some vicious prejudice against them and occasional hate crimes. Yet this sometimes serious approach is both tempered and augmented by the author’s sense of humor.

Sookie’s telepathy also adds to the fun, especially since vampires’ minds are closed to her – which is part of Bill’s appeal. As Sookie says:

"…sex, for me, is a disaster. Can you imagine knowing everything yor sex partner is thinking? Right. Along the order of ‘Gosh, look at that mole…her butt is a little big…wish she’d move to the right a little…why doesn’t she take the hint and…?’ You get the idea. It’s chilling to the emotions, believe me.”

By the way, yes, there are sex scenes, but they mange to be romantic and titillating [sic] without any off-putting language or anatomical detail. And yes: apparently having sex with a vampire is all that it’s cracked up to be!

Best vignette:

The first time Sookie brings Bill home to meet her grandmother (with whom she has lived ever since her parents died when she was almost seven), she tells Bill: “Gran says to please eat before you come.”

Worst revelation about myself:

Ugh: Clearly I’m in that demographic that has long transitioned from the passionate excitement of romantic pursuits and crazed hormonal longings to the mundane quotidianness of settled life. (read: “whose turn is it to wait for the cable guy?” and “don’t forget the trash!”) I’m just ripe for the picking for this kind of book, in which I can thrill to the “Remembrance of Things Past.” How embarrassing. Sigh.

Evaluation: A bodice ripper with blood, and loads of fun.