Wednesday, May 23, 2012

Dead In The Family by Charlaine Harris

(Sookie Stackhouse series, book 10)
After enduring torture and the loss of loved ones during the brief but deadly Fae War, Sookie Stackhouse is hurt and she’s mad. Just about the only bright spot in her life is the love she thinks she feels for vampire Eric Northman. But he’s under scrutiny by the new vampire king because of their relationship. And as the political implications of the shifters’ coming out are beginning to be felt, Sookie’s connection to one particular Were draws her in to the dangerous debate. Also, unknown to her, though the doors to Faery have been closed, there are still some fae on the human side – and one of them is angry at Sookie. Very, very angry.

Well, this book wasn’t all I expected it to be but I suppose it was slightly better than the previous two books in the series. I still find myself less than impressed with the majority of the plotlines in the most recent books, unfortunately. We come into this story with Sookie recovering from the torture she received from Lochlan and Neave, the demented fairies from the previous book. She seems okay physically, but it’s very apparent that emotionally she’s still a mess.

Eric has cemented himself in her life and is now officially her boyfriend. YAY! I have loved Sookie and Eric together ever since Dead To The World, and I am so happy that they are finally together when they are both in their right mind, and one isn’t in a state of amnesia. Oh! Oh! Oh! For the first time in the series, Sookie FINALLY imagines what it would be like if she were turned into a vampire. I have been waiting for her to at least consider the idea since she got serious with Bill; it only took ten books to get there. I still don’t think she will go through the change, mainly because her relationships with vampires have never been horribly solid.

We get to meet Eric’s maker, Appius Livius Ocella, who comes to Eric for help in returning his brother to sanity. I’m not really sure what to think of Appius; I think it’s just the fact that he’s having sex with Eric’s “brother” Alexei, who is an adolescent. I just could never really get past that whole relationship enough to make an opinion of him.

Sookie contacts Bill’s “sister” (she was created by the same maker as Bill) in an attempt to save Bill’s life. He is still recovering from the silver poisoning he got from one of the demented fairies’ teeth in the Fae War. His “sister” Judith agrees to come stay with Bill, and uses her blood to nurse him back to health. I’m anxious to see where their relationship goes since Judith resembles Bill’s late wife so much. I think this put a nice end to the drama between Bill and Sookie, I really liked it.

Oh, and Sookie also has to deal with her angry half-fae uncle Dermot who managed to stay in the human world since the Fae world was sealed up at the end of the last book. There’s a twist that will make it more difficult to catch this little sneakster though because he just might look exactly like someone else; someone Sookie would never be afraid of. Once again, I’m not horribly interested in any of the faeries (except Sookie) that have been in these books.

There’s a lot of buildup around Sookie’s plan to kill Victor because she sees him as a threat not only to her, but also Eric, Bill, and Pam. As I expected, she doesn’t want to kill him in cold blood; they try to devise a plan that will invoke a battle of some sort so she can use self-defense as her excuse for killing him. Understandable, I guess…but the dude has made it clear he wants to kill you. Just stake him, homegirl!

Overall, there wasn’t a whole lot of action in this book which was quite the change of pace from the previous two books. I still didn’t love this book, but it was a pretty good read. Even so, I’m eager to read the next book just to see if they carry out their plan on Victor and to see if Sookie and Eric are in it for the long haul… (please say yes, please say yes, pleeeease say yes!)



No comments:

Post a Comment