A Touch Of Dead Review

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A Touch of Dead

-          Charlaine Harris

Publisher: UK – Gollancz

Sookie Stackhouse enjoys her job as a cocktail waitress in Merlotte's, a small-town bar in small-town Bon Temps, deep in Louisiana. She's funny and pretty and, thanks to her grandmother, she's very well-mannered - but since not many people truly appreciate her ability to read their minds, the guys haven't exactly been beating down her door . . . And then along came Bill, tall, dark and handsome - and Sookie couldn't 'hear' a word he was thinking. He was exactly the

type of guy she'd been waiting all her life for. Of course, Bill had a disability of his own: fussy about his food, not into suntans, bit of a night person: yep, Bill was a vampire. But at least now Sookie nows there *are* guys she can date who won't worry about her catching them thinking about other women . . . And that's going to make Sookie's life really interesting!

I’m really glad I didn’t pay a lot of money for this book! At a slim 180 pages it took me less than two hours to read the whole thing – consisting of five short stories starring Sookie Stackhouse – two of which I had read previously in other anthologies. I really like the Sookie Stackhouse series having discovered them years before True Blood started. I will admit some novels I prefer to others and these short stories are a mix of what I like and don’t about the series. I like when Sookie is being is being proactive or investigating a mystery so the stories Lucky and Fairy Dust worked best for me. Both of which involve Sookie using her telepathy to solve a crime. The stories I disliked where when the action seems to stumble upon Sookie as in Dracula Night and Gift Wrapped – which I didn’t like as it didn’t sit well with what I know of Sookie, but hey I’m a reader not the writer! One Word Answer is more of a prequel to Dead as a Doornail and probably the best of the bunch.

These short stories do assume some background knowledge of the series with details dropped in more to remind the reader of when the book takes rather than inform.  Overall, I would say this is more a book for completists only. I don’t think it adds much to the casual reader or those new to the series. It's not bad - just not memorable. However, I do recommend the series as a fun distraction for a few hours!

Recommended for die-hard Sookie fans only. 5.5 out of 10