The Southern Vampire Mysteries (informally known as The Sookie Stackhouse Novels / Chronicles and renamed the TRUE BLOOD Series upon their reprinting) is a series of books written by The New York Times bestselling author Charlaine Harris, first published in 2001. Her series describes an alternate history which assumes that the supernatural is real and that vampires, shapeshifters, maenads, werewolves and other supernatural beings have only been public knowledge for a couple of years. Its history has otherwise unfolded so identically to that of the real world that the series contains occasional references to popular culture.
The series is narrated in first person perspective by Sookie Stackhouse. She is a barmaid and telepath in the fictional town of Bon Temps, Louisiana. The first book in the series, Dead Until Dark, won the Anthony Award for Best Paperback Mystery in 2001. The ninth book, and sixteenth story, Dead and Gone was released on the 5th of May 2009. Harris is contracted to write at least 10 books, the next of which is entitled Dead in the Family was released in May 2010. During the True Blood panel at Comic Con 2009, Charlaine Harris revealed that she has signed a contract for three additional books.
The novels and short story collections[]
- Dead Until Dark (May 2001)
- Living Dead in Dallas (March 2002)
- Club Dead (May 2003)
- Dead to the World (May 2004)
- "Fairy Dust" in Powers of Detection (October 2004)
- "Dancers in the Dark" (a novella) in Night's Edge (October 2004)
- "One Word Answer" in Bite (2005),
- "Dracula Night" in Many Bloody Returns (September 2007)
- Dead as a Doornail (May 2005)
- Definitely Dead (May 2006)
- "Tacky" in My Big, Fat Supernatural Wedding (2006)
- All Together Dead (May 2007)
- "Lucky" in Unusual Suspects
- From Dead to Worse (May 2008)
- "Gift Wrap" in Wolfsbane and Mistletoe (October 2008)
- Dead and Gone (May 2009)
- Dead In The Family (May 2010)
- Dead Reckoning (May 2011)
- Deadlocked (May 2012)
- Dead Ever After (May 2013)
- After Dead: What Came Next in the World of Sookie Stackhouse (October 2013)
Short story compilations[]
- A Touch Of Dead (October 2009)
Audio Anthologies[]
- Dead But Not Forgotten: Stories from the World of Sookie Stackhouse (May 2014)