Betrayed by her longtime vampire love, Louisiana cocktail waitress Sookie Stackhouse must now not only deal with a possible new man in her life – the oh-so-handsome shapeshifter Quinn – but also contend with a long-planned vampire summit. With her power base weakened by hurricane damage to New Orleans, the local vampire queen in vulnerable to those hungry for a take-over. Sookie must decide what side she’ll stand with. And her choice may mean the difference between survival and all-out catastrophe…
I stated in a review of one of the previous Sookie Stackhouse books that there would be a bit of an avalanche of characters in the upcoming books. This was the first book of the series where I caught myself saying, “wait…who is that again?” That being said, let’s get the wheels turning on this review.
Sophie-Anne, vampire Queen of Louisiana, has been accused of murdering her husband, the King of Arkansas, and is set to stand trial at the annual vampire summit. She has summoned Sookie to accompany her and use her abilities as a telepath to read the minds of any humans wandering throughout the summit, as well as employees of the hotel. Without delving too deep into vampire politics, Sophie-Anne needs to know if there is any talk of allegiances, or alliances to overtake Louisiana since her powerbase has been weakened by Hurricane Katrina.
Bill and Eric are of course on hand at the summit, as well as Sookie’s boyfriend, weretiger Quinn. (She’s still with him. Ugh.) It’s a no brainer that this will undoubtedly cause rifts between them, as they all want Sookie to themselves. Sookie and Quinn’s relationship heats up until she finds out a shocking revelation about him involving his teen years. I don’t want to spoil it, but I will say this; as much as I dislike Sookie and Quinn together, I can’t understand why she gets so upset with him after finding out this information. Personally, I think it gave him a likable quality…loyalty. So I guess I’ll give him a point for that. Her relationship with Eric could be forever changed after in an attempt to save her, Eric forces her into a third and major blood exchange. I dug this plot twist and I’m anxious to see how it affects her feelings for Eric, if at all.
Relationship storyline aside, Sookie and Barry (the hotel bellboy and fellow telepath) find clues that lead them to believe the Fellowship of the Sun may be up to something big and start to realize there may be something odd going on in the pyramid-like hotel where not only is the summit being held, but is also where all the vampires are shacking up.
I wasn’t as impressed with this book as I was with some of the others, but it was a good read overall. It was a little hard to keep track of all the new character additions, and I did find myself going back to re-read certain parts just to remember why or how certain characters were relevant. Other than that, I’m ready for the next book and hoping for a reconciliation between Sookie and Eric. *Fingers Crossed*
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