Series: Sookie Stackhouse – Book 6
Author: Charlaine Harris
No of Pages: 324
Release Date: 28 April 2006
Sookie Stackhouse doesn’t have that many relations, so she really hated to lose one – but of all people to go, she didn’t expect it to be her cousin Hadley, a consort of New Orleans’ vampire queen – after all, Hadley was technically already dead.
But Hadley is gone, beyond recall, and she’s left Sookie an inheritance, one that comes with a bit of a risk – not least because someone doesn’t want Sookie digging too deep into Hadley’s possessions…or her past. Sookie’s life is once again on the line, and this time the suspects range from rogue weres to her first love, the vampire Bill. Sookie’s got a lot to do if she’s going to keep herself alive…
My Thoughts:
Definitely Dead probably had the worst start of this series so far, but it turned out okay in the end.
Sookie has been called to New Orleans to clean out her dead cousin Hadley’s apartment. After arriving there, meeting a witch who is a bit of a ditz and finding a werewolf/vampire obomination in Hadley’s old apartment, she finds out the real reason the queen is so interested in some of Hadley’s possessions.
Sookie is a consistent character, which is why I like her. She hasn’t turned into some superwoman, she is still a barmaid who can read minds and knows her place when it comes to the paranormal. I do feel though that she is starting to judge others a little harshly, considering she lives in the proverbial glass house.
I felt that her treatment of Quinn, especially after he had saved her life – twice in one day – after he couldn’t shift fully back and was left with his tiger tail was a bit mean. If I had someone as sexy, powerful, warm, and gentlemanly as Quinn, I wouldn’t discriminate because of a measly tail, Sookie can’t really talk with her weirdness. I would probably prefer Quinn to just sleep as a tiger myself – but that might be because I am a tiger person.
Quinn for all his attributes – I mainly like him because he is a tiger – doesn’t really seem to fit in with Sookie’s life, and I can’t yet decide if that is a good thing or a bad thing. As much as I would want to be with Quinn – tiger thing – I couldn’t feel much chemistry between him and Sookie during the course of this book. The physical was there definitely, but take for example Eric in his amnesia days, there was so much more gentleness and love. With Quinn its more like a possession, Sookie is his woman and probably the excessive use of the word “babe” just grated on my nerves when it came to him.
The start of Definitely Dead was absolutely horrible. I don’t read .5’s in any of my series, not even Cat and Bones of whom I am in love. So when a significant event like Hadley’s cousin dying, Sookie meeting a whole bunch of new characters and Bill somehow being involved in that process happening in a novella and including significant details pertaining to the premise of the story I was extremely confused for the first couple of chapters.
One thing I am starting to find with this series though, is that the stories are starting to run together which is ok from a reading perspective, but horrible from a reviewing perspective. About two days after putting this book down, I could remember what happened, I could remember key elements and funny parts, but then they started to get confused with things that had happened in previous books. The events run chronologically for the most part, but its hard to pick out certain occurances and pinpoint exactly when they happened in the story.
Dead Until Dark
Living Dead in Dallas
Club Dead
Dead to the World
Dead as a Doornail
All Together Dead
From Dead to Worse
Dead and GoneDead in the Family
Dead Reckoning
