From Dead to Worse by Charlaine Harris

This is another installment of the Sookie Stackhouse series, a series which spawned the creation of True Blood on HBO, by the way. Now, I started watching True Blood when it first began and I was totally sucked in...get it? hee hee hee... Anyway, I put off reading the books for awhile because, as we all know, the books and movies/television series that are based off of books never align properly. I liked the show too much to risk 'ruining' it by reading the series...until after the second series when I finally broke down and started reading them. I'm not going to spout off about which is better, that's rather irrelevant for this forum and for my own part, I like them both.

The thing about the Sookie books is that the main character is, well rather annoying. The stories are good but Sookie just irritated the hell out of me. The whole whiny, bad things happen and it's really not my fault, and inability to accept responsibility was just irksome all the way around. However, this book finally shows us a maturing Sookie who, while she is still prone to tantrums and whining, at least recognizes that she is being silly or overreacting, etc. This more fully developed Sookie does have several adventures (gosh being a bartender in a small town is rough!) per usual.

So, we have issues with the local Were community (attempted takeover) that Sookie finds herself stuck in the middle of. We have issues with the vampire community (successful takeover) that Sookie is again smack dab in the middle of and we also have sidelines with Tanya, Sookie's brother Jason, her roommate(s) and Bob the former cat, and to top it off, Sookie meets her Fae great-grandfather and her cousin Hadley's child (who appears to have the same abilities as Sookie).

The storyline is, as always, entertaining and fast paced. I found myself tearing through this book and that dreaded "just a few more pages" that turns into "oh crap it's 6am already!" definitely popped up. The Sookie books, as a whole, are all similar in that way. Most of the stories I've finished in a day and even when Sookie is acting like a total 'tard I still look forward to reading the next...

Overall the Sookie Stackhouse novels are a fun read. They aren't terribly deep or challenging but the are perfect for light entertainment. I am definitely excited to see what happens with this new, wiser Sookie.

PS--the third season of True Blood starts in a couple of weeks so I'm not sure when I will be reading the next book in this series...

Paging Paranormal Romance

According to Wiki

Paranormal romance is a sub-genre of the romance novel.  Paranormal romance focuses on romance blending fantasy, science fiction, or horror. Paranormal romance may range from traditional category romances with a paranormal setting to stories where the main emphasis is on a science fiction or fantasy based plot with a romantic subplot included. Common hallmarks are romantic relationships between humans and vampires, shapeshifters, ghosts, and other entities of a fantastic or otherworldly nature.
Paranormal romance has its roots in Gothic fiction.

So, when I found a book series about psychics, mediums, clairvoyants, precognitive and telepaths, I thought that I would give it a try.

The author is Kay Hooper and the series, Blood Trilogy, is about a group of psychics that work outside of the law.  

I take it back. The series sucked cabbage. 

Blood Dreams Trailer

Blood Sins Trailer

I do not want to even bother reading the third book... 

The series has the following tags:

๑ suspense

๑ paranormal romance

๑ romantic suspense

๑ psychic mysteries

๑ thriller

All if it LIES

This series is horrible.

I could barely get through the second book.

Wait, I take it back.  The book works as an auidobook because you really do not care what you miss. 

There was not a kiss in either book.  How can you call it a romance if there is no real romance between any two characters?  I could have forgiven the lack of romance had not the thriller portion of the book been equally missing.

No kissing, no thrills.

That is my everyday life......

What about the suspense?  

By the novel's end, I just didn't care.

In Blood Dreams, you have a serial killer torturing women of a certain type.  He murders the daughter of a prominent congressman and appears to stop killing.  The Haven group, psychic civilian crime stoppers who operate outside of any government oversight, are on the case.  A case that leads to a small town in Georgia. 

From Kay Hooper's website

He's the kind of killer we instinctively fear the most. A killer without boundaries, without conscience, without any fear of being caught. And his latest victim is terrifying proof that no one is safe: the daughter of a powerful U.S. senator.

 Has promise doesn't it.  Here let me tell you, the killer was molested by a relative who all of his victims resemble.  Not original but it works.  The killer has some kind of psychic powers that enables him to stalk, claim and hide his victims from our psychics.  That was interesting....

The psychics don't exactly get the clues right. I mean they don't realize that the killer is a psychic that is also stalking the Haven team until the last few chapters of the book.  I knew it well before then.

No one gets kissed or even a just-long-enough hug. The living characters are not really developed.  Certainly not enough for me to care that no one had a real romance in this romantic thriller. They are more like scenery that move the story along.  The ghosts were the most interesting characters.

I assumed that the second book would flesh out some of the characters from the initial book.

Again, I was wrong. 

From the author's site

Young, vulnerable, attractive, Tessa Gray made the perfect victim. Which was why Noah Bishop of the FBI’s Special Crimes Unit recruited her to play the role of grieving widow. As the supposed new owner of land coveted by the Church of the Everlasting Sin, she’d be irresistible bait for the reclusive and charismatic Reverend Samuel. His fortified compound in the mountains near Grace, North Carolina had been the last known residence of two women murdered in ways that defied scientific explanation.

The Haven group first met Reverend Samuel during the investigation in Blood Dreams.  In this book, he is suspected of being a psychic vampire.  Now, when I heard that on the audio my ears perked up.

Vampire

Now, this could get interesting. 

We know that vampires are sexy creatures.  Being bitten is likened to being kissed.  In most of the sexy vampire genre, being bitten is orgasmic. 

In this psychic vampire story, the Reverend "bite" also causes orgasms but his victims think they are just getting closer to God.  I laughed out loud.

My favorite line,

" Tessa was shaking her head in response to Hollis's theory about physical pleasure.  Okay, explain the women. Tell me how a woman — a grown, sexually active woman could not know she's having an orgasm. And how any woman could explain that away as a spiritual experience."  —

I am with you Tessa.....

Anyhoo. 

I seriously can't take any more text to describe this stupid series except to write that Hooper would have done better to combine the two books into one novel.  Or taken more time to develop the characters, the romance, and the suspense. 

I recommend the series if you are taking a long car ride by yourself or if you are undergoing physical therapy or some other medical procedure where you are left alone for long periods of time.  You don't want to read this quickly.  It will make you feel like you just ate a lot of angel food cake. With red food coloring.