Harris came up with a clever device to have Eric Northman, the sheriff of Vampire Area 5 in Louisiana, show his softer and more appealing side. Eric has been attracted to Sookie from the first but until the third novel, Club Dead, Bill Compton had been her vampire boyfriend. In this novel, a group of witches try to take over Eric's businesses in Shreveport and put a spell on him that leaves him running toward Sookie's house without his memory. Sookie puts him up in her house. And they have quite a lot of fun "playing house". This whole situation also puts Sookie and Eric's second-in-command Pam on better terms.
Eric eventually regains his memory but loses the memory of his time together with Sookie. This allows Sookie to have a romantic connection to Eric but also allows him to become his more sinister and threatening self. Meanwhile, Sookie is beginning to leave a trail of bodies of her romantic rivals behind her. Well, the one she staked in Club Dead was a vampire, so she didn't really leave a body behind. She uses a shotgun in this one. But it was in legitimate self-defense, so it doesn't make Sookie a serial killer. Not exactly.
There's a witch war - a local one, at least - as part of this one, so there's plenty of action. The Shreveport Weres (werewolves) make an unusual alliance with the vamps to fight the witches. Not all the witches are evil. Some good ones help out Sookie's side. We also learn that there is a difference between witches and Wiccans, the latter being a more touchy-feely New Agey brand of witch. The hardcore witches tend to hold the Wiccans in contempt.
The Anna Paquin-esque version of the cover
Sookie's brother Jason's amorous adventures finally get him into even more serious trouble than in the first novel, Dead Until Dark, when he's suspected of being a serial killer. (The cops were suspecting the wrong Stackhouse of those tendencies!) Jason's troubles involve a small community of inbred werepanthers who live out from Bon Temps.
Vampire Bubba shows up to play his role of comic relief. We also get the tidbit that Bubba can enter dwellings without an invitation, unlike the other vampires in the Sookieverse. Bubba's coming off to vampirism was flawed, so he would up "not altogether a true vampire," as Pam explains to Sookie.
Sookie also acquires a fairy guardian, Claudine, in this novel. There's a funny scene in which Claudine is standing around with a group, with Eric and Bill being almost irresistibly drawn to her. We learn that fairies are particularly attractive to vampires. She explains to Sookie, "My blood is intoxicating to a vampire. You don't want to know what they'd be like after they had me."
In this installment, Harris pushes back Vampire Bill's death date - or his coming over date, if you prefer - to 1867 from 1868, though it doesn't really affect anything in the plot. Eric also is described as having the title of "sheriff" of Area 5 for the first time, the state being divided up into vampire jurisdictions. They have a parallel system of government and justice.
My favorite quote from this novel comes from Sookie, pondering one of her many moral dilemmas: "I blinked, wondering if that wasn't exactly what Christianity taught. But I am no theologian or Bible scholar, and I would have to leave the judgment on my action to God, who was also no theologian."
Tags: charlaine harris, dead to the world, sookie stackhouse, true blood
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