Dead Until Dark by Charlaine Harris

Product Details

• Pub. Date: May 2001
  
• Publisher: Penguin Group (USA) Incorporated
  
• Format: Mass Market Paperback, 304pp

Synopsis

For years, Charlaine Harris has delighted fans with her mystery series featuring small-town waitress-turned-paranormal sleuth Sookie Stackhouse.

And with HBO launching an all-new show, True Blood, based on the Southern Vampire novels, the demand for Charlaine Harris and Sookie Stackhouse will be bigger than ever.

My thoughts:
I recently started watching the first season of True Blood and I had wanted to have this book read prior to starting it, but with all my other commitments I didn’t get around to starting it until I was almost done with the season. It was hard for me to get into at the beginning because it was so similar to the show I felt like I already knew what was going to happen, but as I got further into the book I started to enjoy it a lot more. I can’t wait to finish up some more of the books I have agreed to review so that I can read the second book in the series.

Since I had already watched the show I had all the actors from the HBO series in my head and wasn’t really able to develop my own faces for them. I appreciate that the show tried to stay with the book pretty well. I have also been watching The Vampire Diaries and that one is so different than the books that it can be a bit frustrating to watch. Don’t get me wrong, it doesn’t follow the book exactly, but most of it is very similar. I am wondering if the character Tara, who is Sookie’s best friend on the series but does not exist in the book, was put in to make the show more diverse and to compensate for some of the characters who got cut out.

I liked Sookie and probably would not have guessed who the killer was in the book, in the series I think it is even less obvious, but my husband had read the book before me and he let it slip. He is terrible with things like that, he likes to know surprises in books and movies ahead of time whereas I like to see it happen on my own. It doesn’t ruin it for me, but I am less likely to read or watch something if I already know all the twists. For me that is part of the enjoyment. I still have two episodes to go for season one and then season two doesn’t come out until this spring. Maybe I’ll make time before that to read the next book!

Biography

Born and raised in the Mississippi Delta, Charlaine Harris is best known for her paranormal mysteries -- a sly, wry blend of humor, horror, that has been called "cozies with teeth."