Club Dead
Sookie Stackhouse/ Southern Vampires, Book #3
Charlaine Harris

Review brought to you by OBS staff member Heidi

Club Dead is the third installment of Charlaine Harris’s popular Sookie Stackhouse series that HBO’s True Blood is loosely based on.

In this installment, Bill is being very distant as he is working on a secret project for the Queen of Louisiana.  Sookie has decided to spend time away from him while he works which he happily agreed to (a little too happily in Sookie’s opinion) and he tells her that he will be traveling to Seattle.

Then, several days later Pam and Eric inform her that Bill is missing.  That he had been in Jackson, Mississippi (not Seattle) and has fallen back with a female vampire he used to be involved with, Lorena.  He was heading back to Bon Temps to make financial arrangements for Sookie so he could return to Lorena, but he never showed up.  Now Eric must either find Bill or be able to produce what he’s been working on or the queen may take his life.

Sookie heads to Jackson with a werewolf associate of Eric’s, Alcide, to try to find out what happened to Bill.  While hanging out at the supernatural club, Josephine’s, or better know to the weres as Club Dead, Sookie finds out that Bill has in fact been kidnapped.  Eric looks everywhere he can in Jackson for Bill, but comes up empty leaving only one place he could be, the King of Mississippi’s compound.  They devise a plan to try to get closer to the king and hopefully Bill, but plans never quite go the way you expect.  Sookie ends up getting staked and is forced to take Eric’s blood in order for her to save Bill.

This book is a re-read for me and I must be honest that the first time through (which was back-to-back with the other books of the series) I thought it was good, but not great.  This time however, I liked it much better and thought it was pretty good.  I found that I was more open-minded to Alcide (I’ve always been team Eric) as well so spacing the books out definitely has its advantages not to mention seeing sexy Joe Manganiello playing Alcide on True Blood never hurts!

I’ve had many problems with things Sookie does in this series and I always think she’s waaaayyy to lenient on Bill so I was glad to see that she wasn’t rushing to get back with him after his unfaithfulness and the incident in the Lincoln’s trunk.  Although I think, I would still have problems with him being in my house for any length of time after those indiscretions.

I love that you start seeing the sweet side of Eric in this book.  He’s so protective over Sookie with the blood offense at Josephine’s and with the robbers at the gas station and,“That’s my future lover, be more respectful” has always been one of my favorite lines of his.  Not to mention his sweet gesture at the end of the book when he has her driveway fixed for her.  You can’t deny the chemistry between him and Sookie in this book!!  Although she has some decent sparks with Alcide as well…

If you’re looking for a fun light read, then look no farther than the Sookie Stackhouse Series for your escape.  Once you pick them up, there’s no turning back!