Charlaine Harris: From Dead to Worse

Let me reassure you that I didn't go from Herta Müller to Sookie Stackhouse - no no, I don't think that would have been bearable. I read this a while ago, actually. I saw it in the library and couldn't help myself - seems like I have a compulsion to read one of each heroine, so since I haven't read an Aurora Teagarden it ain't over yet. But it really is - to me! - hardly readable. And what makes it sour is that, like I said, the books could be so much better if better editor and given more time. Charlaine Harris is, according to this interview, a rape survivor herself, and one does get that shot of true feelings being tapped into here and there. But without better flow to the stories it's just mediocre. Which makes me sad, I want to like her. She seems like a nice person. But so far the most I've gotten out of her books is finding out (via the interview via her website)that Elaine Viets has a pair of custom-made vampire fangs that she uses instead of a gun or pepper spray to deter unwanted attention. How wonderful is that?

This one is about... um... Sookie's brother has marital problems, the werecreatures have some sort of power struggle and vampires from Las Vegas move in and take over the vampire community. I think that's most of it. Wow, she packs in a lot of blood and sex. But she's not the greatest at it that I've come across. Quite interesting though how Sookie is church-going Methodist (or Baptist?) yet has carnal relations very freely and is all into supernatural things and world. Oh, and this isn't the first book, it's the second-to-last one, so one isn't exactly slowly lulled into the alternative universe here. It's full on fantasy supernatural political summaries from page one, and I almost laughed out loud thinking what Nick Hornby would have made of it. Vampire queens, werecreatures and synthetic blood, all in earnest. Ha.