Dead as a Doornail: Sookie Stackhouse Southern Vampire Mystery # 5

I love the Southern Vampire books! C. Harris has created a fascinating universe in which the vampires have come out of the coffin, but the shapeshifters, fairies and others definitely have not! This is the 4th in the series and can be read without reading the other books. however, it's much more enjoyable to read the others first, so that the interactions between the major and minor characters are clear.

Harris has created an intrecate polical structure for the different supernaturals ("supes")who either hate, ignore or tolerate the other supes with the vampires being the most organized. Sookie Stackhouse, the telepathic barmaid, has been dragged into vampire politics before (and hated it) and now is about to be heavily involved in werewolf politics - the succession of the packmaster of Shreveport.

After having no love life for most of her life (the local men would rather think she's nuts rather than telepathic), Sookie's current love life is a mess. She is definitely not seeing her first boyfriend, Vampire Bill. Eric, Head vampire in the area and Bill's boss, desperately wants to know what happened when he had amnesia and stayed with Sookie (book #3). Sam, Sookie's boss, is a shapeshifter and interested (but only after she starting dating Bill). Calvin, a werepather from an isolated and very strange small town, is courting her. And Alcide, a werewolf, wants to marry her but he also wants to help his father become the next packmaster of Shreveport.

Sookie's brother Jason now turns into a werepanther during the full moon and someone is shooting the shapeshifters of BonTon.

One of the most interesting things about this universe is that the people accept that vampires exist but refuse to admit that shapeshifters, witches and magic also exist!

The recording is excellent with the reader doing a good job with the different voices. I wish that the other books were also available at Audible!

Another great installment from Charlaine Harris, unfortunately the narrators recording isn't as clean as previous books. You can hear her draw in breath or smack her lips between sentences, long pauses as she's reading between lines, the audio seriously could use some cleaning up, wouldn't take to much... Audible books -- please consider editing the audio! It would make listening to this book much better. Other than those technical issues, the books is fun and sets the stage nicely for the next book. Five stars for the book, 2 for the audio.

If you love the Sookie Stackhouse series, this one certainly delivers. There someone shooting weres. If that's not bad enough, attempts are made on Sookies life. New supernatural characters are introduced, but we still hear much from our favorite vampires Eric, Bill, and Pam. Lots of suspense in this installment. Vampire and Were politics are explored and the facinating topic of the "blood tie" is further explored.

Definetly a book that should be read from the start of the series. It's a great series and Johanna Parker does an outstanding job telling this story.

This was I think the first book to be recorded, and the reading isn't as good as the first 4 books she narrated--- she didn't do a bad job, but the first 4 were better read...

Simply put - Think of the book this way - "Anne Rice Vampire Cronicles" meets "Harry Potter". THe only bad thing is that Audible doesn't have any of her other books in the series at the moment i'm typing this. Bummer. After listening to this book you'll want to hear more of her work. Quite the captivating little story "Dead as a DoorNail" turned out to be. Now i'm going to be having to make bi- montly checks to see if they've got any more of her books.

I really enjoyed this book in the Sookie series. I think number 3 & 4 were my favorites but this one was also very good. It gets you even deeper into the werewolf and shifter part of the story Bill and Eric are in the book but they are not a main focal point of the story like they have been in the past. You also get to meet Quinn in this book and he seems like a very interesting character. I found this book interesting and funny just like the ones before it, I am waiting on my next credit to see what happens to Sookie next.

I love the Stackhouse series, #4 being the best. The story is disjointed, with too many characters going in too many different directions. The narration is inconsistent from the other novels - this must have been done first. Accents don't match up and you can hear the narrator swallowing and taking breaths - also her pacing is off.

I didn't think I would care for this story, however, after my mother's very enthusastic review, I gave it a try. I was definitely not disappointed. The narrator was very good at all of the characters and I could easily distingush each of them. The book was also extremely fast paced, no waiting around for something good to happen. I can not recommend this audiobook enough. In fact, it was so good that I immediately downloaded the next book in the series (Definitely Dead).

This book was for me a happy mistake. I realized in the first few minutes of listening that I had not paid a lot of attention to the summary description, novels about vampires not being my usual choice. But its quirkiness kept me listening, and by the end of the first chapter, I was hooked. I am now listening to its sequel while simultaneously going back to read the first 4 books of the series, so I've been immersed in Sookie Stackhouse's life, and loved every minute of it. Like Diana Gabaldon, Harris's biggest strength is being able to create a real, down-to-earth, flawed main character who is a perfect complement to the outrageous story line, creating a believable world out of unbelievable pieces. It took a while for me to get used to the voice Johanna Parker gives to Sookie, but once I did, that became Sookie's voice throughout the books I read as well as listened to. Parker's success with the other characters' voices is a bit uneven, but considering how many voices she has to do within a book, she does an outstanding job overall. I'm about to finish listening to the sequel to this book, Definitely Dead, and I am dragging my feet a bit because when it's finished, no more Sookie. I can't recommend these books enough.

I enjoyed this audiobook a lot. The narrator does a good job of creating the voices and is pleasant to listen to. I've previously listened to "Dead Until Dark" that had an interesting twist - a female narrator, with one male narrator doing all the male characters, which was quite effective. So where are the other titles? I'd love to have the whole series available!