Happy Sookie Stackhouse Day!

It's here!!!

Keeping with tradition of the past few years, the 1st Tuesday in May marks the release of the latest Sookie Stackhouse novel (aka, the True Blood series for those of you more familiar with the show loosely based on the books).

Sooo excited! Hopefully I'll have my copy of "Deadlocked" - book 12 in the series - later today or at the very least sometime this week!

What's sad though is that it means next year we get the conclusion to the series, as author Charlaine Harris has said repeatedly that there will only be 13 books in the Sookie Stackhouse series. I'm hoping book 12 doesn't disappoint as book 11 was mostly segue/filler.

I got hooked on the series a few years ago, as True Blood (the show) was nearing the end of its 2nd season and everyone seemed to be talking about it. I was curious and watched the 1st season, reading the 1st book along with it. The 1st season of the show was pretty close to the book when it came to the main plotline and all the sub-storylines meshed into the main one pretty well too (the books are all told in 1st person from Sookie's point of view). I read the 2nd book right away and then watched the 2nd season once hubby got caught up on the show. The show exaggerated the secondary plotline, but the main plotline worked alright, despite some changes made. The 3rd season wasn't going to air for at least 9 months so I had plenty of time to get caught up on the books (only 9 were out at the time, plus the compilation of short stories). I breezed through most of them that fall and winter (book 5 was the only one that took me longer than a few days as I was having trouble getting into it) and really enjoyed them - picking one as my favorite is quite difficult as lot of the ones in the middle are just sooooo good and entertaining!

There's twists you didn't see coming, lots of action and mystery as well as some romance (but not nearly as frequent or graphic as what you see weekly on HBO - 1 episode of the show usually has more sex than you read in one book). There's also humor thrown in as well. And let me stress that it is a supernatural series and more than just a vampire series - yes, vampires are frequent in the Sookie Stackhouse universe, but there's also werewolves and shifters, faeries, and lot of other supernatural creatures that show up throughout the series. It's more adult than, say... Twilight (not to mention better written) and Sookie is a much better female role model than Bella for sure! She's strong, independent, thinks for herself and while Anna Paquin plays her a bit whiny/needy on the show, book Sookie is one of my favorite female characters in literature (although I think her reasoning for breaking up with Quinn in the series was dumb... hopefully we're introduced to him at the end of the upcoming season of the show - I liked Sookie and Quinn together!).

Even if you tried to watched the show and didn't like it, give the books a chance - they're easy reads and a lot of fun, with just the right amount of adult romance (your significant other will be thrilled, lol...).