Review: Living Dead in Dallas, Charlaine Harris

Courtesy of Amazon:

All it takes is one delicious blonde and one small mistake for things to turn deadly : Sookie Stackhouse is in trouble again! Cocktail waitress Sookie Stackhouse is having a streak of bad luck. First her co-worker is killed, and no one seems to care. Then she comes face-to-face with a beastly creature which gives her a painful and poisonous lashing. Enter the vampires, who graciously suck the poison from her veins (like they didn’t enjoy it). The point is: they saved her life. So when one of the bloodsuckers asks for a favour, she obliges – and soon Sookie’s in Dallas, using her telepathic skills to search for a missing vampire. She’s supposed to interview certain humans involved, but she makes one condition: the vampires must promise to behave, and let the humans go unharmed. But that’s easier said than done, and all it takes is one delicious blonde and one small mistake for things to turn deadly . . .

I really enjoyed Dead Until Dark and not surprisingly, enjoyed this installment in the series even more.  The plot is a little more exciting, especially when it comes to danger to Sookie, the characters get fleshed out a little bit more, and overall it was a ton of fun to get back into Sookie’s world.  I also particularly enjoyed that she has doubts about her relationship.  Bill is a vampire and does some fairly inexcusable things because of that, but it seemed more like a real-life relationship to me because they have dealbreakers.  They also love each other, though, and they have an interesting dynamic together.  I have to say that I’m very curious as to whether they’ll stay together throughout the rest of the series, or even whether I really want them to.  I’m much more attached to Sookie than I am to Bill, so I think a similarly dynamic character could spark some interesting tension.  Not Eric, though.

I really like this series.  I’m looking forward to the next, and as of right now, if someone wants urban fantasy, I know what to recommend.