Book Description:
The tenth Sookie Stackhouse novel from the Anthony Award-winning Southern Vampire series – and the basis for the HBO series True Blood.
After enduring torture and the loss of loved ones during the brief but deadly Fae War, Sookie Stackhouse is hurt and she’s mad. Just about the only bright spot in her life is the love she thinks she feels for vampire Eric Northman. But he’s under scrutiny by the new vampire king. And as the political implications of the shifters’ coming-out are beginning to be felt, Sookie’s connection to one particular Were draws her into the dangerous debate. Also, though the doors to Faery have been closed, there are still some fae on the human side – and one of them is angry at Sookie…very, very angry…
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Three words – nothing important happens. Seriously, you can skip this and not miss much in the series.
Okay, the best thing I can say about Dead in the Family: A Sookie Stackhouse Novel by Charlaine Harris is that at least I liked it marginally better than the forgettable book #9 Dead and Gone. Thank goodness for the two child characters in book #10 who saved me from just chucking it out altogether – there’s the innocent little Hunter (who faces being seen as a monster by the world if he can’t hide his gift as early as now), and there’s the tormented Tsesarevich Alexei (who was literally turned into a monster-in-perpetuity against his will while burdened by memories no child should have to deal with ).
Dead in the Family actually starts out pretty good – we see a traumatized Sookie slowly recovering from the grief and aftereffects of the torture she bore at the hands of her sadistic fairy kidnappers. I didn’t even mind when Sookie then went on to play babysitter for her telepathic second cousin Hunter since I really liked the little kid, and I’d always been interested in learning more about their gift/curse of telepathy. But then, the rest of the book just continued to meander along pointlessly until the end! I mostly found myself just twiddling my thumbs wondering where the main plotline was as I continued reading. Sookie just seemed to be passively dealing with a multitude of little crises here and there throughout the rest of the book without any real overall plot development?! It was like Ms Harris really didn’t have any new good ideas left, and she wrote this one just to meet the minimum requirements of her contract. Bah, humbug!
And seriously, the lack of development in the Eric-Sookie relationship is such a letdown, after all that build-up starting from the fab fourth book Dead to the World. It was great learning more about Eric’s background though, with the visit of his ancient maker and new little brother Alexei in tow. I kind of wished that this subplot was delved into more, but as wont with Ms Harris lately, much of the exciting action happens with Sookie in the dark (and apparently just waiting for Eric to call and report in!) Bah, humbug!
I hope that Ms Harris stops resting on her laurels and actually produced a better 11th book (Dead Reckoning) in her series! From this 10th book, my impression is that she’s all tapped out of all things Sookie. Hope you got your mojo back, Ms Harris!
Dead in the Family by Charlaine Harris is available on Amazon as a Kindle edition, Hardcover edition, Paperback edition and Audible Audio.
The eBook is also available at B&N, Apple iBookstore, Kobo books and Sony eBookstore.
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