Harris, Charlaine: Dead to the World
Dead to the World (2004)
Author: Charlaine Harris
Genre: Paranormal Romance, Mystery
Pages: 291 (mass market paperback)
Series: Sookie Stackhouse #4
"With the sure touch of a master" (Crescent Blues), Charlaine Harris delivers "the sort of vampire thrills that make Laurell Hamilton's Anita Blake novels so popular" (Locus). In Sookie Stackhouse-a Southern cocktail waitress with a supernatural gift-Harris has a created a heroine like few others, and a series that puts the bite back in vampire fiction. Now the hit series launches into hardcover for Sookie's biggest twist-filled adventure yet. When cocktail waitress Sookie Stackhouse sees a naked man on the side of the road, she doesn't just drive on by. Turns out the poor thing hasn't a clue who he is, but Sookie does. It's Eric the vampire-but now he's a kinder, gentler Eric. And a scared Eric, because whoever took his memory now wants his life.
Why I Read It: I'm three books in. Why the hell not?
Now, I'm not in LOVE with this series or anything, but regardless, I think I can say that this is my favourite of the series thus far. I think this is in large part due to the New Eric. There was something incredibly endearing about him not being a douchebag (albeit an amusing douchebag). And the whole conflict with the witches was actually kind of engrossing (and had a crazy bloody resolution). So yeah, the most exciting and the most romantic of the Sookie books so far.
While Eric was definitely much cuter in his memoryless state, there was still some things that kind of annoyed me about his behaviour. For one, he was still oddly possessive of Sookie like Bill was (though not nearly to the same extent), and for two, he started calling her "my lover" all the time which annoyed the crap out of me. But other than that? I was rooting for them to get together and I was really curious how things were going to wrap up when Eric got his memories back.
The conflict with the witches expanded the supernatural world that Harris has created and I appreciated how gritty and gruesome she was willing to go with it -- I mean, we are talking about ruthless supernatural beings here, and Harris really let's them loose.
Final Verdict: Probably the best Sookie I've read so far. It had a decent mystery, and I liked the conflict with the witches. I also, despite myself, enjoyed the romantic devlopments between Sookie and Eric. This series is still just brain candy to me, this was an extra fun dose of it.
Cover Commentary: Bleeeuuugghhhh.