Author: Charlaine Harris
ISBN: 978-0-575-09753-7
RRP: $32.99
For everything you didn’t know that you didn’t know about Sookie Stackhouse and her Sookieverse there is now a Sookie Stackhouse Companion that will help to fill any holes that may exist in your knowledge.
I thought this may be a book I could skim to find out what info was in there and get a general feeling for the book so I could review and move on – well nice theory but it was never going to happen. As soon as I opened the book I was hooked.
Opening with an introduction by Charlaine Harris about how her relationship with Sookie began and how the basis of the storyline came to be I just knew there would be inclusions within these pages that really would broaden my understanding of the Sookieverse.
Next is the brand new, never before published novella Small Town Wedding which was something I hadn’t been expecting (because I didn’t read the back of the book).
For those of you who love the books but don’t watch the show, who love the show but haven’t read the books or who love the books and the show but get a little confused because the two are so different – there is definitely something in here for you.
There are some great sections in the book that help put the pieces together and hold the continuity. It was fantastic to sit and read cliff notes of the entire series start to finish. It put everything back in order and was set out in a timeline.
Life In Bon Temps is a marvellous section written by Victoria Koski whom Harris describes as her continuity queen. It sets out the entire series bared to the bone in approximately 130 pages. This would be the perfect literature to read for lovers of the show who want to know how the books pan out but don’t have the time/energy/inclination to read all of them or who are worried that it would ruin the show for them. It is also wonderful to read for people who have read and enjoyed the entire series but read them spaced out and with lots of other stuff in the middle because it refreshes the memory and puts everything back in sequence.
Also within this section is secret dialogue that we never would have heard about otherwise. At the end of the timeline for each book is a couple of pages of dialogue between Eric and Bill – phone calls, emails, letters and face to face.
Charlaine Harris spends a bit of time talking about the Sookie short stories which have popped up in anthologies over the years, and those related to the Sookieverse. She tells us where they fit in the Sookie timeline and where we can find them! 5 of them have been brought together in the anthology ‘A Touch of Dead’ and the other two would need to be chased down in the anthologies they were published in.
Sookie speaks to us about her thoughts on all of the supernatural creatures she has come to learn about, and be involved with on some level.
For those of you who think you know the Sookieverse there is a section of Sookie Stackhouse Trivia to test your memory and observation skills. This section is broken down into the easy questions and the harder stuff. The Easy Stuff is 5 questions on each of the books and The Tough Stuff is 15 questions on each, the answers to all questions are at the back of the section.
If the thought of some of the foods that they eat makes your mouth water, rest assured that now you too can tantalise your taste buds with some of the favourite Bon Temps recipes because here they are included in this volume. You can even get your hands on the super secret (until recently) recipe for Mrs Caroline Bellefleurs famous Chocolate Cake. I can’t wait to try that one out! There are recipes to cover breakfast through to dinner and drinks.
Alan Ball, creator of hit show True Blood, takes some time out to answer questions sent in by fans. We hear about his inspiration for translating the hit series of novels into a hit TV series, why the show takes such a different direction to the books and a little about the character choices. It is interesting reading and always good to get a bit more of an understanding about why things are as they are.
Beverly Battillo speaks a bit about all of the works of Charlaine Harris to get more of a complete picture of her body of work than just the Sookie Stackhouse series. We get to take a little look inside the Aurora Teagarden, Lily Bard and Harper Connelly Series as well as Sookie, True Blood and Charlaine’s relationship with her fans.
The next section is also written by Beverly Battillo, all about her recollections of the fan club that grew up around Charlaine Harris and how it came to be. Fans have their questions answered by Charlaine Harris, the questions were whittled down from those sent in by fans by a process of elimination which is explained by Charlaine before the questions begin. There are some extremely well thought out questions on all manner of things.
Victoria Koski closes out the volume with A Guide to the World of Sookie Stackhouse, this is like an extremely detailed glossary of everyone and everything that appears in the Sookieverse. This is where there is a little repetition happening. The characters are described and there is a rundown of where they appear and what they do, most of which you have just read in ‘Life in Bon Temps’. The great thing about this section is that there is a code that appears at the end of every entry which tells you which novels and/or short stories they appeared in, whether they appeared or were just mentioned, what race they belong to (where that’s known, otherwise they are assumed to be human) and if they died. This section contains EVERYTHING! From unnamed supes to the Pyramid of Gizeh Hotel, Jason’s house and the Queen’s monastery; from the Shifter library to the Shreveport witches and the vampire database. Animate, inanimate, person, place or thing – you want the info and you will find it here.
A must for Sookieverse fans from all walks of life. And for those of you who think you know and remember all the information and don’t need it all together in one volume – you still need it for the brand new novella Small Town Wedding.
I devour books, vampires and supernatural creatures are my genre of choice but over the past couple of years, I have broadened my horizons considerably. In a nutshell – I love to write! I love interacting with a diverse range of artists to bring you interviews. Perhaps we were perfect before – I LOVE WORDS!