Definitely Dead / Charlaine Harris

4 out of 5 stars

Since Louisiana cocktail waitress Sookie Stackhouse has so few living relatives, she hates to lose one - even her cousin Hadley, undead consort of the vampire Queen of Louisiana. Hadley's left everything she has to Sookie, but claiming that inheritance has a high risk factor. Some people don't want her looking too deeply into Hadley's past, or Hadley's possessions. And they're prepared to do anything in their power to stop her. Whoever it is, they're definitely dangerous - and Sookie's life is definitely on the line...  

Another installment in the Sookie Stackhouse soap opera and I am still enjoying these books far more than I would ever have believed that I would! The whole set-up is ridiculous, but it is so much fun.

No one ever gives Sookie credit for her ideas, but she comes up with more solutions than all of the supposedly ancient vampires put together. And more often than not, it is just like when women pitch ideas in a meeting—the men ignore the ideas and then pitch the same ideas themselves later and congratulate themselves on finding the solutions.  Sookie is getting better at having her ideas acknowledged though.

Another positive development—she seems to be developing some female friends, some back-up for when all the men in her life become difficult. Because let’s face it, lovers come and go, but friends are there through thick and thin.

I just hit the jackpot in my local used book store—apparently someone was cleaning off their bookshelf and turned in a whole whack of Sookie books, so I have the next several novels queued up and ready to go. Now the temptation will be to read them all at once, which I suspect would decrease my enjoyment of them substantially.  Self-control will become important and I’m not sure that I’ve got it this summer.