Season two of True Blood is, honestly, my favourite season of the show and maybe even my favourite season of any series ever. Although this is where the series starts to deviate pretty evenly from its source material, I had high hopes for Living Dead in Dallas.


Living Dead in Dallas
by Charlaine Harris

Cocktail waitress Sookie Stackhouse is having a streak of bad luck. First her co-worker is killed, and no one seems to care. Then she comes face to-face with a beastly creature that gives her a painful and poisonous lashing. Enter the vampires, who graciously suck the poison from her veins (like they didn't enjoy it).

The point is: they saved her life. So when one of the bloodsuckers asks for a favor, she obliges - and soon Sookie's in Dallas, using her telepathic skills to search for a missing vampire. She's supposed to interview certain humans involved, but she makes one condition: the vampires must promise to behave and let the humans go unharmed. But that's easier said than done, and all it takes is one delicious blonde and one small mistake for things to turn deadly....


Proving to be as addictive as its television adaptation, I seemingly threw myself headfirst into a binge of Charlaine Harris' beloved vampire mysteries. Dead Until Dark was downright delectably indulgent and thrilling, so I was eager to jump into book two immediately after finishing. And, because Living Dead in Dallas is the basis for my favourite season of the adaptation, I was practically salivating.

Alas, I didn't enjoy this one quite like I'd hoped. While I can say that I easily enjoyed the speediness of plotlines in Living Dead in Dallas a bit more than Dead Until Dark, it often felt like something was missing. This could be attributed to many things: use of tropes I'm not all that fond of, [spoilers] Lafayette being murdered, the lack of depth and development in terms of the mythology and Bill still existing.

But, I didn't not enjoy it!

The romance, this time around, was a little less cringe worthy for me. While I still hate Bill, and am more or less tolerating his relationship with Sookie, I'm excited to see that the spark between Eric and Sookie has lit up.

In terms of the storyline, I am highly intrigued by the subtle creepiness of politics in this world and the dynamics between the cult church of anti-vampire humans and the vampires. I found that the pace of  Living Dead in Dallas' central mysteries tie into each other really well and make for an engaging read. As Sookie unravels the story, so do we, and it leaves us with an exhilarated buzz.

Harris once again taps into that addictive quality that makes her stories entertaining. Her characters range from likable, to unlikable and terrifying; each one more morally gray than the next. I like their complexities and the relationships that form because of these complexities.

Living Dead in Dallas was thoroughly enthralling, fast paced, and deliciously dark. Harris knows how to make her audience want more!