I have to admit I bought this elsewhere for a MAJOR bargain price! And I had kinda read the first couple of books before. But this time I was semi comparing it to the series which had been on the TV.
If you're looking at this, you pretty much know it's about Sookie Stackhouse, a young telepath who falls in love with a vampire. And that might be all that you know. But that's not all that's here. You have vampires - your bog standard scary ones - Bill, the studious first love of Sookie's life; Eric - the Viking Vampire that sneaks in under your radar, turns you on simply because he is so good at being bad, then sneakily makes you care; Pam - the Yummy Mummy looking vampire who has a total ruthless streak; and of course, the vampire that everyone recognises when they see him around, but who answers to the name of Bubba!!
But you get more than that. You get witches, Wiccans, werewolves, shifters, man-woman dynamics, politics, good old southern ways, infighting, inbreeding, royalty, fairies - these books have SO much in them, you don't get a chance to get bored. The men are absolutely gorgeous sounding - if they look that good in season 2, the series is going to have a HUGE female following, bigger than it has at the moment.
All told from Sookie's POV, these books start off slow and meandering, until you realise that you've read three of them on your day off because as soon as you finish one you just want to find out what happens next. And each book wraps some things up without being HEA - Sookie's life isn't simple and easy anymore, and the books don't try to pretend they are. There is some gore, much less sex than you might expect, complicated group dynamics, and a satisfying read. And it's nice that they have been repackaged so they match the TV series.
I read all eight of them in three days (but I did have to go to work one of those days, which took up a chunk of my time) as did my kids! And by the sixth book, I was ordering book 9 in hardback. They are well worth the money individually, but as a box-set you can't go wrong. Highly recommended.