It's almost here!!

Yep, that's right - season 3 of True Blood premieres in LESS THAN 2 HOURS!!

I'm sooo excited right now - I've been waiting for season 3 ever since I finished book 3 last fall.

I was first introduced to the series at the end of last summer by my in-laws - my mother-in-law mentioned it at my birthday last August.I asked her how it was, as I had heard about the show and knew it was based on a book series but didn't really know much about it - was it just a more "mature" version of Twilight made for HBO or was actually pretty good? She said my father-in-law showed it to her, as they get satellite out in the country instead of cable which includes HBO - he wasn't too thrilled about the show and was a bit repulsed by the graphicness of it, but well, she enjoys vampire lore and fiction so of course she got hooked on it.

I decided since she liked it that maybe it was worth checking into. I bought the first book - Dead Until Dark - and downloaded the first season. I got a few episodes in - reading a few chapters then watching a few episodes - before I decided to see if I could get hubby interested; like his mom, he enjoys vampire lore and fiction too.

Naturally, what younger guy wouldn't like this show (it's got action and it's got some nudity) - hubby did! We finished the first season together, he got me the 1-7 book boxset for our anniversary, and once I got a ways into book 2 we started up the 2nd season.

I couldn't stop there - I was too hooked on the story and had to keep reading the rest of the series. I finished the first 9 soon after Christmas (hubby got me books 8 and 9) and book 10 came out at the beginning of May (took me about 4 or 5 days to finish and that was with forcing myself not to rush through it).

The books are really easy to read, but real page-turners. How True Blood differs from Twilight is that it doesn't just focus on the vampires and the weres - it delves into the whole supernatural universe. Sookie is a much stronger female lead than Bella, as she's much more independent and doesn't let the guys in her life push her around - they wrong her, she doesn't go automatically running back into their arms like Bella does - she's a more level-headed character and in some cases easier to relate to than stupid Bella (then again, I'm the same age as her in the beginning of the books so maybe that's why!).

Hubby and I decided that since getting HBO was only an addition $14.99/mo for 6 months that we would get it for the summer so we can watch the new seasons of both True Blood and Entourage (which starts in 2 weeks) when they originally air on Sunday nights, rather than have to wait for a good quality torrent to get posted and then wait for it to download.

I just hope that with season 3 they go back to what worked in season 1 and that was keeping with the basic storyline while building the other additional ones around it. In season 2, they really stretched and dragged out the whole sub-storyline with the Maenad - she wasn't really that huge of an issue in the book and I would have loved to have seen the climax part of that storyline done how it was in the book (Eric in hot pink spandex? Yes please!).

So far from the season 3 preview that I've seen, it does look like they might keep it a bit closer to the book like they did in season 1 - it should be interesting to see Tara's storyline develop, as her minor series arc starts in book 3, although it looks like they're starting Jason's a season early. I'm also curious to see what storylines they come up with for Lafayette and Jessica, as Jessica's not in the books at all and Lafayette was only in the first one. I'm also excited to see Alcide's on-screen debut too - I liked him in the early books and the actor they found for him looks like a pretty good fit, so I'm curious if he can act the part well too! The only disappointment I can possibly is that show creator Alan Ball has said that the werewolves aren't going to be the typical werewolves you would think - instead they're just going to be were creatures that shift into the form of a regular wolf. Oh well...

An hour and a half to go - can't wait!!

Also, don't forget to enter in my latest giveaway – a Fun in the Sun giftset!
Enter up til noon (cst) TOMORROW, June 14! LESS THAN 18 HOURS LEFT!
Click here for the details on how to enter!