Book Review: Dead until Dark

Harris, C. (2004). Dead until dark. London, UK: Little, Brown.

Author: 1-2 sentences.

Charlaine Harris is an American-based author who has been a published writer for over thirty years. Best known for writing mysteries, she has had several books atop bestseller lists including the novels based on Sookie Stackhouse that turned into an HBO television series.

Summary: 2-3 sentences:

Sookie Stackhouse appears to be human, pure, and innocent, but in a new world where vampires are ‘out of the coffin’ around the world, she searches for the place where she fits. Not quite human, and not vampire, her allure to the fanged undead is unknown, and yet is drawn to the thoughtless non-humans. The world around her unravels as vampires come into town, and women – that work with Sookie – start being murdered. She begins to question a new normal.  

Analysis & Application

I chose this book as it is a supernatural mystery and romance, and is the first book in the series. As I would like to write a series, I thought it would help me to understand how the first book in a series sets the scene for future books.

Dead until dark does just that. While creating a solid background of main characters, it also introduces new characters briefly who have bigger roles to play in the subsequent books. Harris is also ruthless in the fact, that she makes sure several characters that appear important, aren’t, and don’t make it to the end of the book. So, the takeaway for me from this was, that as much as I love the characters in my novel, there is always room for one of them to not make it, in a twist of events. Now, in my book, there are now at least three characters who don’t make it to the end of the book.

It solidified for me, the importance of the introduction of characters in my novel, that are fleeting but imperative to the continuation of the story in the next book.

Just on the note of being a ‘series’ book, there is a real sense of the immediate crisis being over with, done and dusted, before the end of the book. Even though it ends on the note of a new storm brewing. This is exactly how I wanted my book to end, although, one part of the crisis or danger has been dealt with, but it isn’t over in the bigger picture. In my manuscript, I have changed it to end it on a pending cliffhanger.

One major issue for me while reading this book was the overuse of ‘I’, ‘he’, ‘she’. On one page alone, ‘I’ was used to start every sentence, it made it so hard to read, that I stopped reading. Carol, a fellow student, is persistent in detecting this repetition in her critiques, and now I see her point of why she detects this. It is curious to me, that this book was published with so much repetition. I will be fine combing my manuscript for places of repeat use of these words and tighten my writing.