Cocktail waitress Sookie Stackhouse is having a streak of bad luck. First her co-worker is killed. Then she comes face to-face with a beastly creature that gives her a painful and poisonous lashing. Enter the vampires, who graciously suck the poison from her veins (like they didn't enjoy it). The point is: they saved her life. So when one of them asks for a favour, she obliges - and soon Sookie's in Dallas, using her telepathic skills to search for a missing vampire.

There's only one vampire Sookie Stackhouse is involved with - at least voluntarily - and that's Bill. But recently he's been a little distant - in another state distant. His sinister and sexy boss, Eric, has an idea where to find him, and next thing Sookie knows she's off to Jackson, Mississippi, to mingle with the underworld at Club Dead.

Sookie comes to the rescue of a naked, amnesiac vampire - and ends up in the middle of a war between witches, werewolves and vampires!Sookie Stackhouse is a small-town cocktail waitress in small-town Louisiana. She's pretty. She does her job well. She keeps to herself - she has only a few close friends, because not everyone appreciates Sookie's gift: she can read minds.

Sookie Stackhouse enjoys her life, mostly. She's a great cocktail waitress in a fun bar; she has a love life, albeit a bit complicated, and most people have come to terms with her telepathy. The problem is, Sookie wants a quiet life - but things just seem to happen to her and her friends. Now her brother Jason's eyes are starting to change: he's about to turn into a were-panther for the first time.

Sookie doesn't have that many relations, so she hated to lose one - but of all the people to go, she didn't expect it to be her cousin Hadley, a consort of New Orleans' vampire queen - after all, Hadley was technically already dead. But she is gone, beyond recall, and she's left Sookie an inheritance - one that comes with a bit of a risk - not least because someone doesn't want Sookie digging too deep into Hadley's past - or her possessions.

The supernatural community in Bon Temps, Louisiana, is reeling from two hard blows: the natural disaster of Hurricane Katrina and the manmade horror of the explosion at the vampire summit in the up-north city of Rhodes. Sookie Stackhouse is safe but dazed, and she's yearning for things to get back to normal. But that's just not happening. Too many vampires - some friends, some not - were killed or injured, and her were-tiger boyfriend Quinn is among the missing.

If you think your family relationships are complicated, think again: you haven't seen anything like the ones in Bon Temps, Louisiana. Sookie Stackhouse is dealing with a whole host of family problems, ranging from her own kin (a non-human fairy and a telepathic second cousin) demanding a place in her life, to her lover Eric's vampire sire, an ancient being who arrives with Eric's 'brother' in tow at a most inopportune moment.

Now it's the turn of the weres and shifters to follow the lead of the undead and reveal their existence to the ordinary world.Sookie Stackhouse already knows about them, of course - her brother turns into a panther at the full moon, she's friend to the local Were pack, and Sam, her boss at Merlotte's bar, is a shifter. At first the great Were revelation seems to go well - then the horribly mutilated body of a were-panther is found outside Merlotte's.

Sookie Stackhouse is a cocktail waitress in Bon Temps, Louisiana. Now the vampires and the shapeshifters are 'out', you'd think the supernaturals would get on with each other. But nothing is that simple in Bon Temps!

Sookie Stackhouse has one last adventure in store. Life has taken her from a waitress in Merlotte's Bar, Bon Temps, to part owner; from social outcast to the heart of her community; from a vampire's girlfriend to the wife of one of the most powerful vampires in the state. She has survived explosions, revolutions and attempts on her life. Sookie has endured betrayal, heartbreak and grief...and she has emerged a little stronger, and little wiser, every time. But with life comes new trials...