Sookie has long since lost her innocence, but in each book of the Southern Vampire Mysteries, she becomes more resigned and sometimes in harmony with the the motivations and mores of the supernatural company she keeps. Vamps are hot, but they’re also a little...bloodthirsty, not to mention unfeeling. Sookie is neither of those things, but she’s getting more accustomed to vamp justice.
Twilight meets The Historian. The protagonist is a witch, but vampires figure prominently. Diana Bishop is a renowned scholar on alchemy doing research at the Bodleian Library at Oxford. She pages an enchanted book and all hell breaks loose in the creature community (which includes daemons as well as witches and vampires). The research part is interesting, but the story devolves into the overprotective male vamp, gendered power struggle, and abstinence porn that drove some feminists crazy about the Twilight series.
Witch Rachel learns to
embrace her inner demon
maybe even elves.
The second installment of Briggs's Mercy Thompson series is as compelling as the first. Or maybe it isn't, because it's not new. And the multiple love interests are starting to show themselves. Not only is Mercy about to find herself caught between a werewolf and a vampire (yawn!), she's also torn between two werewolves. The other thing I found a little annoying this time around is the introduction of one of Mercy's other skills: talking to ghosts. It seems totally inorganic, both to the plot and to the universe Briggs has created.
Instead of reviewing the latest book in the Sookie Stackhouse series, I prefer to gossip about it. Beware of spoilers.
Whew! This one went by quickly. Well that's partially because I had to finish it before taking off for the US Social Forum in Detroit. It's a new book, so I couldn't renew it, and it's due before I'll get back. Anyway, it's the continuing saga of Cincinnati witch Rachel Morgan and her partners Jenks, a pixy; and Ivy, a vampire as they fend off coven witches, powerful elves, and greedy fairies trying to fuck with them.
Sophie Mercer is a social outcast from a broken home who has finally been sentenced to the school you go to when you've been kicked out of all the others: Hecate Hall. Well, where witches, shape shifters, and faeries go anyway. Raised by a human mother and yet to meet her warlock father, Sophie doesn't know a lot about witchery (history and powers), which is kind of a drag when she gets to Hecate (Hex) Hall, because the other kids are steeped in it and even know more about her father than she does. Assigned to the school pariah as a roommate, a pink loving vampire named Jenna, Sophie is not off to a good start at her new school.
I was a little creeped out by Harris's dedication, "For all those readers who want every last sip of Sookie." I wonder if she really thinks of her fans as vampires? Let me be clear that I like Sookie, but I'm not a fanatic about it. What I am a fanatic about is reading. I like to be thorough, so when I learned of this collection of short stories that complements or fills in the Sookie Stackhouse series, I requested it from the library right away.
The fourth in the Gossip Girl meets the Vampire Diaries series Blue Bloods is more romance than vampire. It's as absorbing as its predecessors but is somewhat thin--like its three vampire/model narrators.
I am returning to my earlier haiku format reviews:
Things aren't going
well for Sookie, but at least
she is getting some.
(Should "aren't" get counted as one or two syllables?)
