Dead Until Dark

Dead Until Dark by Charlaine Harris
Subtitles: "A Sookie Stackhouse Novel" or "Southern Vampire Mysteries"
292 Pages
(Could contain spoilers)

Quite simply Dead Until Dark is Twilight for grown-ups! Sookie Stackhouse is our main character. She is a waitress/bar maid who can read minds. One day at work a gentleman enters and she can't hear him. Turns out this guy is a vampire named Bill. Sookie quickly falls for Bill and a romance begins. Meanwhile women are turning up dead in the town of Bon Temps. And everyone suspects the newest memeber of town, the vampire Bill. But is Bill really the murderer? Or is it another more dangerous vamipre? Or is there a killer loose framing vamps?

Dead Until Dark has the three things grown-ups miss most while reading Twilight.
To start with the writing is WAY better. Twilight is sometimes seems like it was written by a 12 year old fan girl. While Harris brings reality to her supernatural. First of all, Harris puts real fright into her vampires. Even the "good" natured Bill sometimes slips and feeds off humans, including Sookie. Secondly, Harris gives the reader a more realistic vampire. The myth has always existed but in her world vampires have "come out" in public as part of the real world and the community. Making her vampires much more believable than Twilight's sparklers. Lastly Harris gives her readers what they want. And what my dear friends does the audience want? Well it's simple.....SEX. Yep....Harris gives us that detail while the sex scenes in Twilight tend to "fade to black".

Overall Dead Until Dark was a quick and enjoyable read. Harris was able to keep me interested in her characters and her story. (P.S. Sookie is a MUCH better female lead than the whining Bella.) I liked the book enough that I would pick up the others in the series and so much that I am dying to see True Blood the HBO show based on the books. 3 out of 5 stars.