Welcome Back Guest Blogger--Beth Whitney-Lanier

From Anne Rice To Sookie Stackhouse

By Beth Whitney-Lanier

Originally, I was going to blog about "Tender Is The Night" by F. Scott Fitzgerald, which I'm in the process of trying to finish.  When my husband, Joseph, is home from the barge I don't read as much as I normally do.  So, this month I thought I'd talk about a book I read over a year ago.  I think it was last week that Amy blogged about reading books she wouldn't normally read.  "Dead Until Dark" by Charlaine Harris would probably fall into that category for her.  I've always enjoyed reading vampire novels. The first vampire novel I read was "Interview With The Vampire" by Anne Rice when I was a teenager.

Charlaine Harris has brought the vampire story to rural America and that alone makes part of these books humorous.  It's almost like a soap opera with the drama that comes along with vampires.  The books, which are also called The Sookie Stackhouse Novels, have also been made into a TV series.   I'm sure most of you have heard of "True Blood" that airs on HBO.  I actually own the first season on DVD. 

Source:  http://www.givememyremote.com/

Sookie Stackhouse is the main character throughout all 11 novels.  She is a small town cocktail waitress that tends to have bad luck around vampires.  You see, in the Bon Temps, Louisiana of Charlaine Harris's world, vampires have "come out of the coffin" and are living among us.  True Blood is actually the name of the synthetic blood that Japanese scientists invented for human use.  Unfortunately, it also enabled vampires to live among us without having to kill and feed off humans.   However, not all vampires drink True Blood.

Sookie and Bill
Source:  http://www.filmschoolrejects.com/

The first night I laid down to read "Dead Until Dark", the first book of the series, I read half of the book.  The second  night I finished it.  The third day I was at Wal-Mart looking for "Living Dead In Dallas" and so on and so forth. I would recommend "Dead Until Dark" and all the other novels to anyone looking for a fun and fast read.  You won't be able to just read one!