Book Review: A Touch of Dead

Title: A Touch of Dead
Series: Sookie Stackhouse/Southern Vampire Mysteries
Author: Charlaine Harris
Published: 2009

New York Times bestselling author Charlaine Harris has re-imagined the supernatural world with her “spunky” Southern Vampire novels starring telepathic waitress Sookie Stackhouse. Now, for the first time, here is every Sookie Stackhouse short story ever written—together in one volume.

Stories include “Fairy Dust,” “One Word Answer,” “Dracula Night,” “Lucky,” and “Giftwrap.”

My Thoughts: A Touch of Dead is a collection of all Sookie Stackhouse short stories ever written.

Fairy Dust takes place after the events in Dead to the World (Book #4). Claudine and Claude asks for Sookie's help to figure out who killed their triplet. This short story didn't engage me much. I didn't care whether Sookie would find the murderer or not. If the story did anything for me, it was making me dislike the fairy siblings, especially Claude.

Dracula Night is set before the action of Dead as a Doornail (Book #5), and is the only short story that involves my favorite character: Eric Northman. Makes you think I would love this one, doesn't it? Well, I didn't. Mainly because Eric wasn't his normal self, instead he was giddy like a little girl meeting her big idol Justin Bieber. And Eric's idol in this case was Dracula, which he hopes will attend his big celebration of Dracula Night...
My favorite character in this short story was Pam, she has such a great sense of humor!

One Word Answer is set after the events in Dead as a Doornail (Book #5)
In this short story Mr. Cataliades shows up in Bon Temps late at night, to tell Sookie about her cousin's death. It was quite interesting to get to learn more about the events surrounding Hadley's death, and Sookie and Hadley's relationship. When I read Definitely Dead (Book #6) which deals with the aftermath of Hadley's death, I was very confused because the reader never hears about Hadley's death. Suddenly Sookie has a cousin who's dead, and is going to her home to pack up her stuff... So this short story definitely gave some more insights to Hadley's death, and how Sookie got the news. I like that this story added some more content to the Sookie's books.

Lucky takes place after All Together Dead (Book #7).
Sookie and Amelia team up to solve a breaking and entering at law firm. Probably the longest story of them all, and the least supernatural of them, even if it involved two witches. Got a bit of a Nancy Drew feeling to it, and felt like a "complete" short story.

Gift Wrap takes place before Dead and Gone (Book #9).
Sookie is dreading spending Christmas all alone, but when she takes a walk in the woods surrounding her house she stumbles upon an injured were. She takes him home, protects him from a rivaling pack who is out to kill him, and cleans his injuries. It seems like Sookie doesn't have to spend Christmas all alone after all!
There was a twist in the end of the story that I didn't see coming, very sneaky! But also, very creepy!

Overall: Charlaine Harris writes in the introduction to this book: "Sookie's life and history are so complex that I didn't know if I could create a coherent piece of short fiction that would do her justice. I'm still not sure I have, but I've enjoyed trying. Some efforts have been more successful than others." And Harris couldn't be more right! Some of these stories were definitely better than the others, but sadly most stories was just so-so. If you aren't a BIG Sookie fan, I see no reason for you to "have to" read this book. It doesn't add much more information to Sookie's life. But if you have some time to spare and are looking for a few quick reads, give it a try. You might end up appreciating it more than I did!

Rating: 2.5 of 5