Book Ten, and Sookie Stackhouse finally experiences both trauma and guilt in relation to the string of murders and unnecessary deaths which happen around her. This is a relief to me, as I was beginning to wonder if I was supposed to be interpreting her character as an emotionless psychopath devoid of human feeling.

Unfortunately I assume this development of normal emotion was tacked on last-minute in response to reader criticism, as it begins and ends in the brief prologue material. Once Sookie has recovered from her horrific experiences by means of a steak and an orgasm, the novel proper begins.

It’s business as usual. Sookie witters on about hair, make-up and outfits as a series of events occur around her. Her housemate Amelia is summarily disposed of, her use as a character having run its course, and she is replaced by Sookie’s fairy cousin Claud. Sookie is attacked for about the 30th time, and spends a great deal of time going on about people’s hair-dos and judging every man’s girlfriend as not good enough for him. All the male characters would prefer to date Sookie, but since she can’t be involved with all of them at once they are sometimes forced to resort to dating the other female characters, who are either bitches, nonentities or both.

There’s a long and rather dull explanation of how vampires divide America into various kingdoms and fiefdoms, which Sookie pays little attention to because she’s too desperate to have sex. She does briefly get enraged about some issue with Hawaii being autonomous, which I failed to understand; I guess it’s summat that concerns Americans. After this we meet Eric’s sire (whose existence Harris’ remembered to mention for the first time in the previous book - pretty good forward planning for her), and his latest sex slave, who for some reason is the last Tsesarevich of Russia. I can only assume that Harris had read a trash history book about Rasputin the same week she wrote this latest book. Still, at least this new random real-life character involvement is less annoying than the ridiculous Elvis business she insists on including in so many books of this series.

Not much happens to Sookie for some time after that, and certainly nothing new. She gets involved once again in both vampire and werewold politics, thereby endangering her life. She accompanies Bill when he tells the Bellefleur family that he is their direct ancestor, a revelation the reader has known since near to the beginning of the series and which has no ramifications whatsoever. Also she steals a disc from Bill containing a database of all known vampires in America, which has been mentioned in almost every book so far for no apparent reason and finally serves 2 purposes; to allow Sookie to trace Bill’s vampire sister and to make Sookie look incredibly stupid. It’s bad enough that she hides the disc for the day in a hall cupboard under some towels, reasoning that this is safe because she calculates her cousin will definitely use few enough towels to come upon it by accident, rather than hiding it somewhere she doesn’t know for a fact her cousin is likely to be looking. But what really makes you question if her intelligence is within the “normal” range is when it emerges that she believes it likely that a piece of software can be so programmed that if you enter the security code incorrectly it could blow up your entire computer. She considers this so credible a threat that she actually hides under the desk after entering the code, just in case. I know she’s not exactly a technophile, but Jesus Christ!
Eventually the ill-advised involvement in were-politics leads to Sookie taking a random illegal drug which her ex found lying about among the belongings of some never-before-mentioned were-Shaman, which even she admits is a bit stupid. The effect of this unknown substance is to make Sookie feel “a lot like Alice in Wonderland after she took a bite of the mushroom.”, by which she presumably means annoyed and either much taller or much shorter. Unless of course Harris hasn’t read the book and is talking crap. Under the influence of this unknown substance Sookie is able to see the degree to which all the were-pack members are devoted to their leader, Alcide, visually represented by the colours of their auras. This makes no particular sense, but it does allow Sookie to identify some obvious traitors to the pack, before she and Jason leave in order that Jason not witness the murder of two attractive girls. Presumably he would’ve been fine with seeing some ugly women ripped apart by wolves. At any rate, this episode is very dull and only interested me insofar as it left me wondering how Sookie can take mind-altering substances but still recall and recount events with exactly the same clarity, detail and tedium as always.

The book concludes with Sookie once more in danger, as Eric’s newly introduced vampire brother predictably goes crazy and kills several unimportant people. All the key characters survive as usual, and conveniently there’s a mass blood-bath where Sookie’s enemies helpfully murder each other, saving Sookie having to make any effort whatsoever. There’s then some random sub-Disney disenchantment of a character who I thought was supposed to be bloodthirsty enemy of Sookie. Then everyone goes home to bed. And that’s it.


Worst New Character Names
Dr. Dinwiddie
Kennedy Keyes
Perdita and Crawdad Jones
Hamilton Bond


Worst Attempt to Get a Girl’s Sexual Attentions
Bill suggests that Sookie sleep with him in order to make him feel better after he was injured in the last war to feature in the books. To Sookie’s discredit she does waver slightly here, which doesn’t say much about her commitment to her current boyfriend, Eric.


Most Naively Patriotic Statement

“It would be awful to think your own government was spying on you,” I said. “Especially after you’d been thinking of yourself as a regular citizen your entire life.”

Least Erotic Talk During Sex

“I think you love me to give it to you.”

This is from Eric. In the same scene he offers his erection as proof that he loves Sookie, which seems rather transitory evidence to me. However Sookie easily tops this unappealing tackiness with the truly appalling response:

“That looks painful. Would you like me to nurse it?”

And finally the even worse

“I moved with increased purpose, swallowing down everything he gave me.”

Harris is certainly on form, once again offering her readers one of the worst sex scenes ever committed to print.


Most Confusing Statement
Sookie on a new vampire who makes a brief appearance before being killed

“Corinna was—had been—African-American.”

Does being a vampire negate your racial origins? I’m pretty sure you are the same race after you die as before. You’re just a dead member of that race, surely?


Most Unusual Life Lesson
Sookie on her 5-yr-old nephew Hunter

“The better manners he had, the easier this world would be for him.”

Not quite sure how that works out. Especially since the “manners” Sookie refers to merely constitute calling her “ma’am.” Is that a great help in life?


Most Unjustified Self-Analysis

“I was not going to be one of those awful people who gets all bent out of shape when the ex acquires a replacement. That was hypocritical and selfish to the extreme, and I hoped I was a better person than that.”

No. you’re not a better person that that Sookie. Not in any way. You’re a spiteful, jealous bitch who hates all women, and most especially those who have the nerve to become involved with one of your many cast-off men.

Annoyingly, Sookie spends the entirety of this book going on about some vampire she wants murdered, presumably in the hope someone else will do this for her. Sadly absolutely no progress is made regarding this murder, so I can only assume it will be the main plot force of the next book. Hopefully it will finally occur to Sookie do summat for herself rather than rely on any other supernatural character or man she meets, as I’m getting sick of her whining prevarication.