Dead Until Dark

Can't wait to get the other ones

El libro llegó en perfectas condiciones y antes del día que lo esperaba.En cuanto a la historia, me encantó, super recomendado!

engaging

Dead until Dark is the first book in the Sookie Stackhouse/Southern Vampire series by Charlaine Harris. It is also the novel which the popular TV series True Blood is based on. In this first installment, Charlaine created this alternative reality where supernatural creatures live among humans and off course one of the best known creatures is vampire. The story is told from the perspective of Sookie Stackhouse, a barmaid with telepath ability from the imaginary town of Bon Temps in Louisiana. She lives with her grandmother Adele and Jason.A Japanese pharmaceutical company has created synthetic blood which makes it possible for vampires to live legally in the human society without feeding on humans. Being a telepath has always been difficult for Sookie in interacting with other people, including finding the love of her life. However, when she meets Bill Compton, she knows he is the one!! Bill is a vampire from the civil war period, who just comes back to Bon Temps, his hometown before he was turned. And technically being "dead" with no brainwaves, Sookie cannot read his minds which gives her a lot of peace when she is around him. Bill, a tortured soul, also finds her interesting and soon they fall in love.Around the same time when Bill starts to settle back in Bon Temps, there are several murders in the area and the victims all have fang marks on their bodies. This raises a lot of suspicion and prejudice towards Bill. Sookie's brother, Jason, also becomes a suspect as he's been involved with the two women. To clear her brother's name, Sookie gets Bill to take her to the nearby Vampire Bar Fangtasia, a regular place that the victims used to hang out in, to pick the brains of the humans there. And in there, we are introduced the owner of the bar, Eric Northman, a much older and powerful vampire than Bill, who will play a major role in subsequent novels-well I am not going to give too much away!!Eric discovers Sookie's ability and knows that she will be useful to him. Sookie and Bill are later summoned by Eric to help him to find out the person/vampire who stole money from the bar's account. It turns out to be Longshadow, the vampire bartender and Eric stakes him just when he tries to attack Sookie.Seeing the growing interest of Eric towards Sookie, Bill decides to apply for the job of investigator in the local area, to increase his rank in the vampire community, so that he can match up with Eric, the sheriff or head of the local area. He needs to be out of town for a few days and he asks Bubba, a famous celebrity who was turned vampire-well you will find out who this is if you read other books from the series, to protect Sookie. Sam also comes to protect Sookie and during the process she finds out that he is a shapeshifter.And finally Sookie gets very close at finding out the murderer who turns out to be Rene, one of her brother's best friends. She almost gets killed but she fights back. When she wakes up, she finds herself in hospital with Bill on her side. Bill gives her the good news that he's got the job.It is very well written, packed with a lot of action and romance, overall a very entertaining book, you kind of get a bit of everything. I would call it the adult version of Twilight (because there is more sex) or Buffy.I am always a fan of vampire novels, I like Twilight, Anne Rice's stuff etc. This, however, is quite different from what I have come across before, some new ideas indeed. In other vampire novels, vampires always have to keep their existence a secret but with Charlaine's world, they live in the open. I like that she keeps it all so close to reality. And the idea of synthetic blood, well I have heard of it being used medically but vampires depend on it-that's just great idea!! Apart from creating this alternative reality, Charlaine also put together some interesting vocabulary/terms in the book, let me just name a few examples:* Mainstreaming-to describe vampires who have "come out" of their coffins and live legally among humans* Fangbanger- humans who adore vampires and are interested in having sexual contact with them-well sometimes these encounters do not end well!!!* The bar owned by Eric is called Fangtasia, as oppose to Fantasia.I also like Charlaine's style of writing. The atmosphere or the mood in other vampire or gothic novels is always doomed and sad. With this one, it's funny, witty and sometimes I find myself giggling.The characters are so likeable in the book. I think it's a good idea to tell the story from the perspective of an ordinary "girl next door" Sookie. Being the heroine of the series, Sookie only has one ability-read mind- but nothing else, not like Buffy for example who is a slayer. I think that's what makes her vulnerable and making the story more interesting.If you look deeper, you will see that Charlaine is actually using vampire as metaphor to explore various current issues. The main topic in this book is really about the minority in our societies and their interactions with "the majority" of our community and the prejudice they come across. There are lots of grey areas in the book. For example, Bill, the so-called tortured soul who now wants to be good, also has his darker side. He has killed people for Sookie. And the town of Bon Temps are so convinced that Bill killed the women because they have fang marks-if that's not prejudice, then I don't know what it is.Towards the end of the book, Charlaine lays down a few hints or loose ends which can be explored further in the next book. To make it clear, on one hand, it's an adventure; on the other hand, it's also a romance which explores Sookie's love life. Well, how will the Bill /Sookie or the triangular Bill/Sookie/Eric relationship develop, you better move forward with book 2. Reading the whole series(9 books at the moment, more to come) is now my current project!!

After several vampire movies and the hype about the Twilight books I was baited for more. I wanted to read a book for grown ups. Looking over a newspaper I ran across a review to the vampire series "True Blood". They mentioned Charlaine Harris and her novel series with Sookie Stackhouse. If you like this kind of fantasy, then you will be taken away into the hot and sticky atmosphere of Louisiana. The vampires are at last coming out into the open and are taking their place in society. I like the characters, the descriptions of the scenery and I just want to read more about the adventures of Sookie and the new world she is living in.