The Complete Sookie Stackhouse Stories

October 2, 2017
Bestseller Harris’s delightful collection of all the short works set in the world of her Southern Vampire Mysteries series (the basis for the HBO series True Blood) includes nine stories and one novella featuring telepath and barmaid Sookie Stackhouse and the unusual denizens of Bon Temps, La. Highlights include the novella “Small-Town Wedding,” in which Sookie accompanies her boss Sam Merlotte, a shape-shifter, to his brother’s wedding in a small Texas town, where human residents angry about the emergence of paranormal entities threaten to derail the wedding. “Playing Possum” finds Sookie at a school where a gunman threatens the lives of hundreds of children, and she must use her gift to survive. In the rollicking “Two Blondes,” Sookie joins up with Pam, her vampire boyfriend Eric Northman’s right-hand woman, on a road trip that ends with the two women working as strippers to save their own hides. The hilarious “Dracula Night” has the usually serious Eric giddy as a schoolboy at the possibility of the real Count Dracula appearing at his Halloween party, much to Sookie’s amusement. Fans will relish these stories, and even those new to Sookie’s world will find much to love. Each story features a preface by the author and info on reading order. Agent: Joshua Bilmes, JABberwocky Literary.

September 15, 2017
Fans of Harris' stories about the young southern woman with the soft manners and the paranormal powersshe's reading your mind!will be delighted to find all 10 Sookie stories gathered in one place. Those who know Sookie only through the sanguinated TV series True Blood may be pulled aboard, likely imagining actress Anna Paquin moving through these pages. Harris is such a superb storytellerrather like J. K. Rowling and her Harry Potter seriesthat few readers are bothered by the sheer outlandishness of the world she's created. It's overflowing with telepaths, shape-shifters, werepanthers, and fairies. Some will see that what Harris has given us is a sly parody of southern society. Vampirism is a metaphor for pan sexuality, which is portrayed effectively as breathtakingly beautiful, though some of Harris' vampires have their nasty side. Werepanthers are inbred lowlifes. The good churchgoing folk, who disapprove, are themselves. Readers will be happy to finally learn how the fairy twins' sister died, and why Sookie chose to marry the shape-shifter who owns the bar.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)