Book: Dead Until Dark

Genre: Horror/Murder Mystery/Romance

Julia Rating: 10

Comments: Dead Until Dark is a cute and funny vampire romance/mystery.  I think it’s a little silly to call any vampire book “horror”, but from what I can tell, that’s how the bookstores classify it, so I put the mad combination up there in the “genre” section.

Dead Until Darkis a book about a world that has recently come to accept vampires.  Vampires have “come out of the closet” so to speak, since a new kind of synthetic blood has been produced and they no longer need humans as victims.  It’s the story of a beautiful young telepath (Sookie Stackhouse) finding comfort in another person who is also not quite human.  It’s also the story of Bill the vampire trying to reconnect with his human roots – lost over a hundred years ago.

But, while all this lovey-dovey romance is occurring, murders have hit the small town of Bon Temps where Sookie and Bill live.  The victims all have old vampire marks on them and all have been brutally killed.  Sookie’s brother, Jason, is a bit of a player and he has had sex with all of the victims, so is the prime suspect.  Sookie needs to find the real killer before Jason goes to jail – and she has to investigate Bill in her search.  But, as Bill points out, the girls would have been drained of their blood – not strangled.  Who is the murderer?  You just have to read an find out.

One thing I liked about the book is that while it explores some vampire sexuality, it’s not overdone to a deeply dramatic point.  Some books are almost pornographic and into how much pain and sex are intertwined when it comes to vampires.  Not so with this one.

Also, I started watching True Bloodthe TV show based on this book and I liked it. It mostly stays true to the books, which is always a relief.

10/17/08: PS: If you are into vampires, check out the vampire blog I helped set up. A friend of mine writes for it.

Week 1 – New Books: October 1st – 11th
- Infected: A Novel by Scott Sigler
- Devil Bones by Kathy Reichs
- Dead Until Dark by Charlaine Harris (not a new book – but a new HBO tv show: TrueBlood is based upon this book.
- In the Woods by Tana French

Week 2 – Classics: October 12th – 18th
This is not a book review week, but a discussion of classic horror writers
- Ray Bradbury
- H.G. Wells
- Bram Stoker
- Edgar Allen Poe
- H.P. Lovecraft

Week 3 – Odds & Ends: October 19th – 25th
- The Darkest Evening of the Year by Dean Koontz
- Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach
- Acceptable Risk by Robin Cook

Week 4 – Supernatural/Very Creepy: October 26th – 31st
- Duma Key by Stephen King
- Strange Candy by Laurell K. Hamilton
- World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War by Max Brooks*
- Deadly Night by Heather Graham (as yet unreleased)

*Just so you know how far I’m going for you, you must know that zombies terrify me. The rest of these novels will give me a little zing – a bit of suspense, maybe a sick feeling in my stomach, World War Z will most likely make me paranoid all month.

**Another “just so you know”, I will put links to the posts in this post as I go, so if someone stumbles upon this mid horror month, they can track.

9/24/08: Revision to book list: I changed from The Shack: Special Edition by William P. Young to Dead Until Dark by Charlaine Harris. This is because as I read The Shack, I find that it’s more theological than anything else.  Sorry about the mix up.

10/31/08: I ran out of time in reading Deadly Night by Heather Graham, so I read and reviewed The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman.