Dead in the Family by Charlaine Harris

ISBN: 9780441018642

Sookie Stackhouse book #10

I was given this book as a gift.

Spoiler Warning: This review will include spoilers of earlier books in the series.

Also the Sookie books are very different from the True Blood TV series, so if you’re coming here as a fan of the TV show don’t expect the two to line up at all.

I’ve reviewed many Sookie books before, and nearly every time I point out that Harris’ strength is in her character building. Well, it’s also in the deep sense of community she’s embedded in Dead in the Family.

It stands to reason that in the early Sookie books, Sookie, a mind reader in a small town where everyone is reeling from the coming out of vampires, doesn’t have many friends. She was the odd one out, the one that no matter how sweet and serving, made other people uncomfortable, as much with her as with their idea of what they might be forced into admitting they were thinking at the time they dealt with her. But with the slow expanding of Sookie’s world, vampires are becoming old hat, shape shifters just came out, and the “normal” world hasn’t even met fairies yet, Sookie is becoming at least a familiar power in Bon Temps. Compared to the others Sookie seems almost harmless. Not to mention she’s ingratiated herself, sort of, into the community as a loyal and helpful member.

Dead in the Family sees the residents of the world struggling to deal with the recent outing of the weres, and Sookie’s own little community still trying to recover after Victor, a vampire from Nevada, forcibly took over Louisiana, killing the injured Queen, Sophie-Anne. Sookie herself is trying to recover, physically and mentally, from being brutally tortured in the last book as well as her impromptu marriage (and *ahem* consummation) to the only surviving New Orleans sheriff, Eric.

Readers who have been aching for Sookie to finally give in to her feelings for Eric will not be surprised to discover there are more obstacles to their relationship than Sookie herself, and the potentially untrustworthy Victor, when Eric’s maker comes to town with his newest child–the last crown prince of Russia Alexei Romanov. All is not well in Sookie’s paranormal world as there are still unfriendly fairies in her woods, anti-shifter groups picketing Merlott’s and Victor’s emissary to Louisiana makes his hatred of Eric and Sookie very clear by trying to have Sookie killed.

However, Sookie does have allies; Eric himself, her brother Jason, who is now a werepanther, Alcide, alpha of the local werewolf pack, her cousin (and a fairy) Claude, Sam, and a handful of humans who are outclassed by Sookie’s supernatural problems, but still think her good people. It’s easy with Harris’ off-beat, unique style to get caught up in the ordinary bits of Sookie’s life–the daily struggle to get through work, reach out to friends and family in need, and try to maintain her own boundaries and identity in the wake of so many overpowering characters–and be caught completely off guard by invading fae, vampire assassination attempts and werewolf feuds.

There really are no even close imitators to Harris’ stand-alone style. Die hard fans will eagerly devour this latest chapter of Sookie and crew’s story, and new fans will find a complex community of people plucked out of the real world and smothered in entertaining (one hopes) fiction with the promise of a lot more good stuff to come.