Club Dead - Charlaine Harris (Sookie Stackhouse #3)

Third time's a charm for me and this vampire series. Finally, I've gotten beyond the plot of the television show "True Blood." Whether it's because I've stopped picturing the show in my head, or comparing how the story lines differed, or whether this situation is actually getting better, I can't be sure. But, it's more likely that I'm just drawn in by the characters and my strange affinity for books in a series. The writing is still terrible and the dialogue horrendous, but Ms. Harris does have quite an imagination for the supernatural. In this installment, Sookie's vampire beau Bill has been kidnapped, and Sookie is sent to Mississippi to see if she can figure out who is at the bottom of everything. Sookie has more interaction with the Sheriff of Area #5, Eric Northman (my favorite character on the show...and quickly becoming my favorite of the books). She fights her attraction to Eric and convinces herself that she still loves Bill, despite discovering that he has betrayed her beyond her wildest dreams. Club Dead also introduces the werewolf, Alcide, who expresses his own attraction to Sookie, and who I hope will appear in future books in the series just to add another dimension to the vampire/telepath world of Bon Temps.