The Sookie Stackhouse series is very popular with my Bookcrossing book club friends. As I'm reluctant to start a new-to-me series and am not that interested in edgy Southern vampires, I have been ignoring the novel length books as they've been passed back and forth. When the short story collection, A Touch of Dead by Charlaine Harris appeared containing all of the Sookie Stackhouse short stories in one volume, I decided that would be my compromise and a chance to see what the hoopla is all about. Sookie turns out to be a very talkative character. The protagonist who likes to chit chat is a chicklit feature (no matter which subgenre). Sookie acts as if she and the reader are BFFs and that super chumminess gets old fast. The stories themselves follow the timeline of the novels so familiarity with larger plot points probably helps. While the stories could have stood alone better than they do, not having read the novels wasn't that much of a hinderance to following along. My favorite of the five short stories is "Dracula Night." I liked the idea of trying to lure out the real Dracula to a cheesy vampire bash. The rest of the book though made me appreciate what my book club friends see in the novels. It also confirmed that I probably wouldn't enjoy the novels.

I am so glad that Charlaine Harris's Sookie Stackhouse short stories have been compiled in a collection. I've been curious about these as I've seen them popping up in different places. They were a nice little fix while I'm waiting for the next book. And they fill in the some of the blanks from the books - like about her cousin Hadley and Claude and Claudine. I really loved the story. Dracula Night is probably the best one - I'm biased because there's a lot of Eric in it. They're all written in Harris's funny style with cameos by lots of her great characters.

This collection of short stories is not part of the main story line, so it doesn't impact in any way the understanding of the series. I picked it up at random, although to be honest it's not worth the money. These booklets have only one purpose, in my view - to make some more money for the author, but they don't really bring any value to the reader. It's a book to be read in one sitting (despite its 200 pages, the font is quite large so it goes through fast) by a fireplace on a winter's night (especially given the last story, which is Christmassy). It's light and unpretentious, fun at times, but completely unmemorable. Fairy Dust is sort of a detective story, with Sookie being asked to listen in to some humans to find out who killed Claudette, one of the fairy triplets. She deducts the murderer out of thin air, the author does not let us in to the through process. The events take place after Dead to the World. Dracula Night is just pointless and weird and gives us a side of Eric that cancels his entire tough guy persona. The "Dracula" guy is a parody. Once more, Sookie unveils a mystery without the author explaining how (especially since she cannot hear vampires' thoughts). The events take place before Dead as a Doornail. One Word Answer is about Sookie being told about the death of her cousin Hadley. She discovers the killed - again, from thin air. The events take place after Dead as a Doornail and we are told it's the first encounter Sookie has with Mr Cataliades. The best thing about this story is the appearance of Bubba. Lucky is another mystery solved by Sookie, this time together with Amelia. I found this the most entertaining of all the stories, probably because Sookie and Amelia actually put in some effort to uncover the enigma. There's also some magic involved, which makes things more entertaining. The events take place after All Together Dead. Gift Wrap is creepy. It would have been a nice god Samaritan story, with Sookie saving the life of a werewolf abandoned in her woods, and it just turns into a whole different level of weirdness. It would have been a nice story if not for the ending. (view spoiler)[Having your great-grandfather gift you a sex encounter is just... I have no words. (hide spoiler)] The events take place before Dead and Gone. To conclude, not an essential book when it comes to the Sookie Stackhouse story and had I known that, I would have not spent money on it.