The novella “Small-Town Wedding,” which appears in this book, occurs chronologically between Dead in the Family and Dead Reckoning.
The seventh story, one I finished not too long ago, is “If I Had a Hammer,” included in Home Improvement: Undead Edition. This story should be read after Dead Reckoning because the du Rone twins have been born. While Sookie and Sam are helping Tara and JB with some much-needed home renovation, they uncover a terrible secret that has lain buried for decades.
RELATED STORIES
Dahlia Lynley-Chivers
I thought I’d enjoy writing about another character in some short fiction, so I’ve written several pieces about Dahlia Lynley-Chivers, a little, very old, very cold vampire who loves her high heels and her men. The adventurous and judgmental Dahlia lives in Rhodes, the city Sookie visits in All Together Dead, and Sookie sees her there, but the two do not talk. Some of the Dahlia stories (“Tacky” from My Big Fat Supernatural Wedding and “Bacon” from Strange Brew) take place before the summit at Rhodes. “Tacky” is about the wedding of Dahlia’s best friend—yes, even Dahlia has a best friend—which is rudely interrupted by terrorists, who don’t live to regret it. “Bacon” is a revenge story in which Dahlia hatches an elaborate plot to bring a witch to justice.
In “Dahlia Underground” (from Crimes by Moonlight), my favorite vampire is hauled up out of the rubble by rescue workers after the explosion of the hotel housing the vampire summit. After a bit of recuperation, she’s directed to pursue the perpetrators by her sheriff, Cedric.
And finally, in Glamour’s holiday issue, we have a Dahlia Christmas story: “A Very Vampire Christmas.” Dahlia actually embraces the spirit of the season in her own way, and she gets to kill some elves in the process.
Another Dahlia story is scheduled for release in Down These Strange Streets, publishing in October 2011.
Sean and Layla
Sean, an Irish vampire with freckles, and Layla, a modern young woman who has a serious problem with a stalker, meet in the novella “Dancers in the Dark,” which first appeared in Night’s Edge. The beautiful Layla, who’s trying to remain anonymous in the Northern city of Rhodes, has fled from the South to hide from her stalker, a rich man who attacked and mutilated her after getting her pregnant. Layla is running out of money, so she auditions for a job with Blue Moon, a company that keeps a stable of dancers who appear at parties and gala events. The teams are usually composed of one vampire and one human, and the human gets bitten at the end of the dance. Layla comes to know and sympathize with the other members of the dance troupe, and they in turn respect her talent and help her when her stalker catches up with her. Sean falls in love with her in his quiet way. In the end, he has to bring Layla over when she suffers terrible blood loss during an attack by her stalker.
Sookie meets Sean and Layla in Rhodes at the vampire summit in All Together Dead.
The Britlingens
Sookie meets the Britlingens in All Together Dead, too. Batanya and Clovache are hired to protect the King of Kentucky at the summit in Rhodes, and against all odds, they succeed in their mission. They’re incredibly tough bodyguards from another dimension. Clovache and Batanya were raised and trained by the Britlingen Collective, whose motto is “What is the law? The client’s word.” We learn more about the two women in “The Britlingens Go to Hell,” in Must Love Hellhounds. Burdened with a dubious client (a thief) and an impossible task (to retrieve a ball from Hell), the two saddle up and head into trouble. Along the way, they encounter Amelia Earhart, Narcissus, assorted strange beings, and the Lord of Hell himself. They also discover that their client is one of the few surviving members of a race with an unusual physical attribute.
The last couple of years have been one big learning curve. I got nothing against change. Considering I wasn’t a happy camper before I met my first vampire, I have to say that change is a good thing. Some days I just feel like I have learned as much new stuff about the world as I can handle. However, so far I’m coping.
There is one real positive thing about my hometown of Bon Temps, Louisiana: Though it isn’t all that big, it can sure adapt.
Back in high school we were studying Shakespeare, and there was this quote in Hamlet that seems to describe the last few years: “There are more things in heaven and on earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” Everyone trots that out in bad horror movies, but there’s a reason for that. It really does say it all.
I always thought that life, and society, wouldn’t change in my little corner of Louisiana. That was before the whole world got shocked one evening when we found out that vampires were real and not just something that you saw in cheesy late-night movies.
Two years later, a real vampire walked into my life one night in Merlotte’s and pulled me smack-dab into the middle of his world. There are times that I wish I had not been working that night, but I know it would have happened one way or another.
THE VAMPIRES
I love the sun. I felt so sorry for vampires when I really considered what it would mean to live your life in the darkness—to never see the blue sky, watch butterflies, see a hummingbird at a feeder . . . just enjoy the day. And some vampires haven’t seen the light of day for over a thousand years. A thousand years of night! It’s hard to wrap my mind around.
And all the time they kept their existence as secret as they could. They’d still be skulking around picking off humans if some Japanese scientists hadn’t managed to create a form of synthetic blood that was just like the real stuff; in fact, in English they named one brand TrueBlood. I figure there were probably stories in the newspaper or on television about this product when it was getting approved for the market, though I don’t remember seeing any.
But the vamps were all over it. It gave them the impetus they needed to start networking, trying to form a plan to coordinate their entrance into the modern world. After a lot of palaver, they decided to, as they say, “come out of the coffin” to let us know they are here and have been here for a long time. The vamps were very anxious to present themselves as no threat to the normal human population. They wanted everyone to know that they were the person next door—except for the “not going out in the day” thing, the fangs problem, and the blood addiction. They downplayed that part, emphasized the “not Eurotrash in a tuxedo” aspect.
A lot of vampires, like my ex-boyfriend Bill Compton, wanted to “mainstream,” to live as much like humans as possible. That presented a few problems ; when you can only go out at night, you can’t exactly be running a Main Street shop. But they all seem to manage to make a dollar or two; that’s the American way, isn’t it? Bill invests in real estate and does computer programming; my current love interest, Eric Northman, owns the vampire bar Fangtasia over in Shreveport. I know there are vampire strippers and builders, and it wouldn’t surprise me in the least if there’s a vampire private detective or electrician. There are a lot of tandem partnerships—someone does the job during the day; someone of the fanged persuasion takes over at night.
A few of the countries around the world went wacky and killed all the vamps they could get their hands on. But the good old U.S. of A. was always a melting pot, so we figured they were just another minority wanting a new home, a dangerous minority if pressed the wrong way, but still one that wanted the same freedoms as the rest of the people in this nation. There’s been a lot of arguing about whether vampires should have equal rights with humans; even if they get them, there will always be people opposed to the idea.