Addicted to Vampires

I have a bit of "downtime" (if any mother of two small children can call it that) between semesters, so I'm doing a bit of light reading.  After trying to get into Black by Ted Dekker, and I did try - got to page 193 out of 410, I decided to go back to a tried and true good read.  Since the last (sob!) Harry Potter movie doesn't come out until July 15 and Season 4 of True Blood begins on June 26, I settled in with Charlaine Harris' series.  Sookie!

Ever since being scared out of my ten-year-old mind by a scene in an old vampire movie where a priest stuffs his vampire's victim into a furnace, I have had a love affair with all things fanged.  I read all of the Anne Rice books and saw the movies.  And yes, I'll admit, I do own the entire DVD collection of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and since there are no books to that series, I do own many of the comics as well. 

Then, a little over two years ago, along came Season 1 (I was a little late on the uptake) of something called True Blood.  My husband, brother, sister-in-law, and I watched the entire season in the course of two days, literally.  I had to have more.

Lo and behold, the HBO series was based on books!  I could not put them down.  I bought and read every single one of them, and I have read them all now about three times.  This series, while admittedly a "beach read" and something that, since I am a certified Prairie Home Companion  English Major, I have to dub a "guilty pleasure," is smart.  Harris manages to present vampires, werewolves, fairies, and other supernatural beings in a storyline that is fun and suspends disbelief.  She tackles prejudice (much as Rowling does with house elves, muggles, squibs, werewolves, etc) by showing humans' (often violent) reactions when vampires and shapeshifters "come out."  She also examines class structure, and prejudice in class structure, by writing her main character, Sookie Stackhouse, as an intelligent, strong, telepathic young woman from a backwater Louisiana town who never went to college and is...a waitress.  All while giving her readers a nice dose of soft-porn. 

I am already on book three, Club Dead, again.  Can't wait to see what direction HBO takes the characters this season!