A Touch of Dead by Charlaine Harris (pp. 192)

This is a collection of short stories previously published as one-offs that fall in line with the plots of the fourth through eighth books of the Sookie Stackhouse series. It reads like Sookie-lite (if that’s possible) or deleted scenes on a DVD. The stories are faster and fluffy than the series books.

There are some details of the Stackhouse world in these stories that help make some of the leaps of background information in the main series books make sense. The stories are cute and a decent substitution for escapist TV. But, they are also a reminder that when creating a character world, leaving pieces by the side of the road for only ardent fans to track down is frustrating for the mainstream reader.

Sookie, Erie, the triplets, Fantasia, and more fill the 5 short stories. Fans who have run out of new Stackhouse material to read will find it entertaining. For new readers of the series, picking up these stories where Harris indicates they belong in the overall narrative will improve their understanding and enjoyment of the series, especially as the quality of written wanes before picking up again in the 10th book.

It’s possible the new stardom the author experienced around the time of the 4th book and requests for these types of side stories are directly responsible for the drop in writing quality from books 4-9.