Randomize ME

Book Description:

The eleventh Sookie Stackhouse novel from the Anthony Award-winning Southern Vampire series – and the basis for the HBO series True Blood.

With her knack for being in trouble’s way, Sookie witnesses the firebombing of Merlotte’s, the bar where she works. Since Sam Merlotte is now known to be two-natured, suspicion falls immediately on the anti-shifters in the area. Sookie suspects otherwise, but her attention is divided when she realizes that her lover Eric Northman and his child Pam are plotting to kill the vampire who is now their master. Gradually, Sookie is drawn into the plot-which is much more complicated than she knows…

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Dead Reckoning, the 11th and latest book from Charlaine Harris’ Sookie Stackhouse series, starts out with a bang with the firebombing of Merlotte’s (where Sookie works as a barmaid). Then, for some strange reason, Ms Harris completely derails the exciting action by following that up with an in-depth account of Sookie getting a haircut to fix her singed hair. Yeah. I know, right, like Seriously?! At that point, I was very relieved that I didn’t shell out a cent for this book (thank you, library!). At least, I won’t be bitching about it as much…

To be fair though, Dead Reckoning is much better written than the last couple of books in the series. Taken as a stand-alone book (overlooking the continuity problems), it’s actually pretty entertaining and a good way to pass the time for those who enjoy paranormal books (minus an atrocious sex scene though – oh Ms Harris, where have you misplaced the missing chemistry between Sookie and Eric?).

In Dead Reckoning, an old enemy of Sookie resurfaces with murder in mind, and Eric FINALLY makes his move against his evil boss Victor Madden. That bad-ass bloody scene pretty much made up for the entire book for me (okay, not entirely, but still). I appreciated that some never-ending plot points finally got resolved here, and there’s even some progression in the Sookie-Eric relationship. Now, the progression isn’t necessarily in the direction I wanted it to go (given how much I love(d) Eric-Sookie), but like the bittersweet ending in Book 4 Dead to the World, I understood why Ms Harris would choose to place the characters at that fork in the road. That ‘twist’ actually made me curious about what’s coming up in Book 12 (hopefully, the last book, please? I really need some closure and some payoff for sticking with this damn series)

What really spoiled Dead Reckoning for me though is that there were just too many major continuity errors here, with Ms Harris seeming to  rewrite history as she saw fit (especially with the new revelations about Eric-Niall-Claudine that I won’t go into anymore, otherwise this review would be a bunch of ‘spoiler’ warnings). It’s confusing to me as a reader to have details changed like that. Do Ms Harris and her editors think that her readers have no memory of the previous books? Don’t they employ someone to keep track of the plot points in the series? Doesn’t she care to keep her characters behaving like themselves anymore? (For example, while I’ve never been a huge fan of Bill, he’s always been a complete gentleman – which made that crude dialogue that Ms Harris saddled him with so incomprehensible to me. Exhibit #1: “…you have a pair of breasts that should win the Miss America Tit Competition..” Get what I mean? And Eric/Alcide/Pam also behave very oddly & out of character in this book).  Honestly, I feel terribly insulted and feel that Ms Harris’ is just disrespecting her loyal fans. Please let this series end!!!

Dead Reckoning by Charlaine Harris is available on Amazon as a Kindle edition, Hardcover edition, Mass Market Paperback edition and Audible Audio.

The eBook is also available at B&N, Apple iBookstore, Kobo books and Sony eBookstore.

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