Loving True Blood in Dallas book suggestion: The Reformed Vampire Support Group by Catherine Jinks

Just for fun...

Catherine Jinks asks her readers to think -- really think -- about what being a vampire might involve, especially in modern Sydney. You can’t eat anything you used to enjoy. You’re unlikely to be able to drive, unless you got your licence before you were turned. If you were elderly, like Bridget, a former nun who was turned at the age of 80, you’ll have arthritis and other aches and pains involved with being elderly forever. You still have to make a living, but you can’t do a normal job. Not if you turned in 1908, anyway. Nina, the narrator, who died in the 1970s, writes adventure novels with a feisty vampire heroine. But Nina was turned at 15, which means she will be a teenager forever, with all the problems this involves.

These vampires don’t live in crypts, though they do have weekly group therapy sessions at the local Catholic church. This means they have to find homes with blackout facilities. And they have nothing to do all night but watch dull television shows.

Read on here

Loving True Blood in Dallas book suggestion: The Strain: Book One of The Strain Trilogy Guillermo Del Toro & Chuck Hogan

The Strain: Book One of The Strain Trilogy by Guillermo Del Toro & Chuck Hogan (Morrow Hardcover)

The visionary creator of the Academy Award-winning Pan's Labyrinth and a Hammett Award-winning author bring their imaginations to this bold, epic novel about a horrifying battle between man and vampire that threatens all humanity. It is the first installment in a thrilling trilogy and an extraordinary international publishing event.

They have always been here. Vampires. In secret and in darkness. Waiting. Now their time has come. In one week, Manhattan will be gone. In one month, the country…In two months--the world.

A Boeing 777 arrives at JFK and is on its way across the tarmac, when it suddenly stops dead. All window shades are pulled down. All lights are out. All communication channels have gone quiet. Crews on the ground are lost for answers, but an alert goes out to the CDC. Dr. Eph Goodweather, head of their Canary project, a rapid-response team that investigates biological threats, gets the call and boards the plane. What he finds makes his blood run cold.

In a pawnshop in Spanish Harlem, a former professor and survivor of the Holocaust named Abraham Setrakian knows something is happening. And he knows the time has come, that a war is brewing . . . So begins a battle of mammoth proportions as the vampiric virus that has infected New York begins to spill out into the streets. Eph, who is joined by Setrakian and a motley crew of fighters, must now find a way to stop the contagion and save his city--a city that includes his wife and son--before it is too late.

You an read chapter one and watch a video interview with del Toro here on Amazon

The book comes out tomorrow pre-order here.

Review from Newsweek HERE

Loving True Blood in Dallas book suggestion: Bloody Good by Georgia Evans

From No more grumpy bookseller blog

In the midst of all of the urban fantasy and paranormal romance releases, I never fail to be surprised at just how different each one is from the next. This weekend, I had the immense pleasure of reading Georgia Evans's debut, Bloody Good, -- it was utterly fabulous!

Bloody Good (June 1st) kicks off Evans's (aka Rosemary Laurey) Brytewood trilogy. It's WWII and the tiny village of Brytewood is in for a big surprise when German forces drop four vampires into the nearby countryside. Their goal, with the help of hidden spies, is to blend in and infiltrate, thereby gaining the advantage in the war. When Dr. Alice Doyle discovers a man impaled in a tree, she rushes him back to her clinic to patch him up. The man seems in dire condition, but when no one is looking, he gets up and walks away! Then some local livestock turn up listless and drained of blood. When a local farmer pops up dead, also drained, Alice and her friends decide something fishy must be going on. Course it's a little easier to believe that a vamp might be in their midst considering how many of the villagers, Alice included, have a touch of "other" in their blood.

Read on

Pre-order book release June 2 !

Loving True Blood in Dallas book suggestion: "Steamed: A Steampunk Romance"

from my friend SciFiGuy

Now this looks absolutely delicious. Steamed: A Steampunk Romance comes out next February from paranormal romance writer Katie MacAlister. I for one would like to see more of this sub genre. Visit her website or blog for more information.

Jack Fletcher's heart is about to get punked.
Computer technician Jack Fletcher is no hero, despite his welcome reputation as one. In fact, he's just been the victim of bizarre circumstances. Like now. His sister happens to disturb one of his nanoelectromechanical system experiments, and now they aren't where they're supposed to be. In fact, they're not sure where they are when…

…they wake up to see a woman with the reddest hair Jack has ever seen-and a gun. Octavia Pye is an Aerocorps captain with a whole lot of secrets, and she's not about to see her maiden voyage ruined by stowaways. But the sparks flying between her and Jack just may cause her airship to combust and ignite a passion that will forever change the world as she knows it…

** Crouching Vampire Hidden Fang is Katie's latest book release.

Loving True Blood in Dallas book suggestion: Harper Connelly Mysteries

You know and love Sookie but do you know Harper ?

Book 4 will be out in October so need to get reading on books 1, 2 and 3.

Grave Sight (book 1)
*Berkley, 2005, ISBN-10: 0425205681; ISBN-13: 978-0425205686 (H)
*Recorded Books, ISBN-10: 1428122745; ISBN-13: 978-1428122741 (A)

Grave Surprise (book 2)
*Berkley 2006, ISBN-10: 0425212033; ISBN-13: 978-0425212035 (H)
*Recorded Books, ISBN-10: 1428132473; ISBN-13: 978-1428132474 (A)

An Ice Cold Grave (book 3)
*Berkley 2007, ISBN-10: 0-425-21729-9; ISBN-13: 978-0-4252-1729-0 (H)
*Recorded Books, ISBN -13: 978-1-4281-8125-0 (A)

Grave Secret (book 4)
* Berkley, October 27, 2009, ISBN-10: 0441018300; ISBN-13: 978-0441018307 (H)

From Publishers Weekly
Ever since Harper Connelly survived a zap from a lightning bolt, she's been able to find dead people, a skill that makes the protagonist in the first installment of Harris's new series a tad more bizarre than the mind-reading heroine of the author's Sookie Stackhouse books (Dead as a Doornail, etc.). Harper travels to the Ozark town of Sarne, Ark., to find a missing teenage girl's body, accompanied by her stepbrother, Tolliver, who acts as her manager and bodyguard and with whom she shares a thinly disguised physical attraction that they manage to keep at bay by engaging in casual sex with various partners. Finding the body takes no time at all, but leaving town afterward isn't so easy. When Harper's life is threatened and Tolliver ends up in jail on trumped-up charges, it quickly becomes apparent that something sinister is going on in Sarne. Harris delivers a knuckle-gnawing tale populated with well-developed, albeit edgy characters. A nifty puzzle toward the end will challenge the most jaded mystery buffs.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc.

This title will be released on October 27, 2009.

Loving True Blood in Dallas book suggestion: "The Little Stranger

The Little Stranger by Sara Waters

You can read first two chapters on author's site HERE

Review
Waters (The Night Watch) reflects on the collapse of the British class system after WWII in a stunning haunted house tale whose ghosts are as horrifying as any in Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House. Doctor Faraday, a lonely bachelor, first visited Hundreds Hall, where his mother once worked as a parlor maid, at age 10 in 1919. When Faraday returns 30 years later to treat a servant, he becomes obsessed with Hundreds's elegant owner, Mrs. Ayres; her 24-year-old son, Roderick, an RAF airman wounded during the war who now oversees the family farm; and her slightly older daughter, Caroline, considered a “natural spinster” by the locals, for whom the doctor develops a particular fondness. Supernatural trouble kicks in after Caroline's mild-mannered black Lab, Gyp, attacks a visiting child. A damaging fire, a suicide and worse follow. Faraday, one of literature's more unreliable narrators, carries the reader swiftly along to the devastating conclusion.
— Publishers Weekly Starred review

Salon review here

Loving True Blood in Dallas book suggestion: The Good Fairies of New York

With Dead and Gone, Sookie book 9 only a few days away you would be wise to get very familiar with fairies !! How about trying this book ?

The Good Fairies of New York
by Martin Millar

British author Millar offers fiercely funny (and often inebriated) Scottish fairies, a poignant love story as well as insights into the gravity of Crohn's disease, cultural conflicts and the plight of the homeless in this fey urban fantasy. Due to the machinations of the obnoxious Tala, Cornwall's fairy king, only a few humans can see the 18-inch-tall fairies who alight in Manhattan: Magenta, a homeless woman who thinks she's the ancient Greek general Xenophon; Dinnie, an overweight slacker; and Kerry, a poor artist/musician who hopes her Ancient Celtic Flower Alphabet will win a local arts prize. Fairies Heather MacKintosh and Morag MacPherson scheme to put Dinnie and Kerry together, rescue fairy artifacts and prove that in love or war, music is essential. Neil Gaiman provides an appreciative introduction.

“Read it now, and then make your friends buy their own copies. You’ll thank me someday.”—Neil Gaiman

Loving True Blood in Dallas book suggestion: The Historian

Looking for something to read ?

How about Elizabeth Kostova's The Historian ?

Saffron on Livejournal does a nice review HERE

From Publishers Weekly:
Starred Review. Considering the recent rush of door-stopping historical novels, first-timer Kostova is getting a big launch—fortunately, a lot here lives up to the hype. In 1972, a 16-year-old American living in Amsterdam finds a mysterious book in her diplomat father's library. The book is ancient, blank except for a sinister woodcut of a dragon and the word "Drakulya," but it's the letters tucked inside, dated 1930 and addressed to "My dear and unfortunate successor," that really pique her curiosity. Her widowed father, Paul, reluctantly provides pieces of a chilling story; it seems this ominous little book has a way of forcing itself on its owners, with terrifying results. Paul's former adviser at Oxford, Professor Rossi, became obsessed with researching Dracula and was convinced that he remained alive. When Rossi disappeared, Paul continued his quest with the help of another scholar, Helen, who had her own reasons for seeking the truth. As Paul relates these stories to his daughter, she secretly begins her own research. Kostova builds suspense by revealing the threads of her story as the narrator discovers them: what she's told, what she reads in old letters and, of course, what she discovers directly when the legendary threat of Dracula looms. Along with all the fascinating historical information, there's also a mounting casualty count, and the big showdown amps up the drama by pulling at the heartstrings at the same time it revels in the gruesome. Exotic locales, tantalizing history, a family legacy and a love of the bloodthirsty: it's hard to imagine that readers won't be bitten, too.

Loving True Blood in Dallas book suggestion: Jane Austen battling zombies and as a frustrated vampire

Austen Meets Alien in ‘Pride and Predator’

For some viewers, the idea of another Jane Austen-inspired period drama is sufficiently monstrous, but a coming film project seeks to update the formula with actual monsters, Variety reported. The movie “Pride and Predator,” directed by Will Clark and written by Mr. Clark with Andrew Kemble and John Pape, will juxtapose brooding aristocrats with a brutal alien that lands in 1800s-era Britain, attacking residents and leaving them with neither sense nor sensibility. The film, to be produced by Elton John’s Rocket Pictures, is the latest work to mix the hoary costume genre with elements of horror. A book called “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies,” credited to Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith and published by Quirk Books, will combine the Austen novel with “all-new scenes of bone-crunching zombie mayhem.” And a coming novel by Michael Thomas Ford called “Jane Bites Back” depicts the 19th-century author as a frustrated vampire, taking revenge on those who have made money from her work.


New York Times HERE

Loving True Blood in Dallas book suggestion: The Girl's Guide to Vampires: all you need to know about the original bad boys...

The good news is: He's tall, dark, and handsome.

The bad news is: He's a bloodsucking creature of the night. Not to mention arrogant, predatory, and immortal.

What's a girl to do? No worries-in this guide, girls learn everything they need to know about these romantic rogues, including how to:

• Know when they've met a vampire
• Avoid falling prey to a nightstalker's charms
• Resist even the most aggressive advances
• Protect themselves against the undead
• Destroy a vampire-using everything from holy water to decapitation

Complete with a review of vampire books, TV shows, and films as well as accounts of real-life encounters with vampires, this book is all girls need to surrender to the night-and still make sure they're around to see another day!Barb Karg (Pacific Northwest) is a veteran journalist, author, screenwriter and lifelong vampire aficionado currently at work on a vampire novel. She's authored or coauthored twenty-two books.

There is a mention of True Blood - you can buy a copy for $8 HERE

Loving True Blood in Dallas book suggestion: The New Annotated Dracula

"Dracula" was not the first vampire novel, nor was it Bram Stoker's first book.

But after years of research, Stoker managed to craft the ultimate vampire novel, which has spawned countless movies, spinoffs, and books that follow the blueprint of the Transylvanian count. Eerie, horrifying and genuinely mysterious, this is a book that was crying out for the kind of loving annotation that "The New Annotated Dracula" graces it with.

First we have an eloquent introduction by dark fantasy master Neil Gaiman, which serves as the gateway to a longer, densely informative foreword by Leslie S. Klinger. Klinger does some pretty extensive exploration of the origins of vampire literature, the impact of the Dracula character, and his presence in mass media ever since Stoker whipped together this book. It's a nice, meaty intro to the story:

And on to that story: Real estate agent Jonathan Harker arrives in Transylvania, to arrange a London house sale to Count Dracula. But as the days go by, Harker witnesses increasingly horrific events, leading him to believe that Dracula is not actually human. His fiancee Mina arrives in Transylvania, and finds that he has been feverish. Meanwhile the count has vanished -- along with countless boxes filled with dirt.

And soon afterwards, strange things happen: a ship piloted by a dead man crashes on the shore, after a mysterious thing killed the crew. A lunatic talks about "Him" coming. And Mina's pal Lucy dies of mysterious blood loss, only to come back as an undead seductress. Dracula has arrived in England -- then the center of the Western world -- and intends to make it his own...

The entire text is reworked into columns, with EXTENSIVE footnoting off to each side -- Klinger loads the text down with literary interpretations, historical explanations, places, attitudes of the time, clarification (the old woman who gave Harker the rosary, says Klinger, was probably a Hungarian immigrant) and even a bit of nitpicking. At times it gets a bit long-winded, but for sheer volume of explanatory information those footnotes can't be beat. It's a big thick chunk of a book though, so not advises for casual walking-around reading.

"Dracula" is the grandaddy of Lestat and other elegantly alluring bloodsuckers, but that isn't the sole reason why this novel is a classic. It's also incredibly atmospheric, and very well-written. Not only is it very freaky, in an ornate Victorian style, but it is also full of restrained, quiet horror and creepy eroticism. What's more, it's shaped the portrayal of vampires in movies and books, even to this day.

Despite already knowing what's going on for the first half of the book, it's actually kind of creepy to see these people whose lives are being disrupted by Dracula, but don't know about vampires. It's a bit tempting to yell "It's a vampire, you idiots!" every now and then, but you can't really blame them. Then the second half kicks in, with accented professor Van Helsing taking our heroes on a quest to save Mina from Dracula.

And along the way, while our heroes try to figure stuff out, Stoker spins up all these creepy hints of Dracula's arrival. Though he wrote in the late 19th-century manner, very verbose and a bit stuffy, his skill shines through. The book is crammed with intense, evocative language, with moments like Dracula creeping down a wall, or the dead captain found tied to the wheel. Once read, they stick in your mind throughout the book.

It's also a credit to Stoker that he keeps his characters from seeming like idiots or freaks, which they could have easily seemed like. Instead, he puts little moments of humanity in them, like Van Helsing admitting that his wife is in an asylum. Even the letters and diaries are written in different styles; for example, Seward's is restrained and analytical, while Mina's is exuberant and bright.

Even Dracula himself is an overpowering presence despite his small amount of actual screen time, and not just as a vampire -- Stoker presents him as passionate, intense, malignant, and probably the smartest person in the entire book. If Van Helsing hadn't thwarted him, he probably would have taken over the world -- not the Victorian audience's ideal ending.

Intelligent, frightening and very well-written, "Dracula" is the well-deserved godfather of all modern vampire books and movies -- and "The New Annotated Dracula" is a worthy exploration of that book.

The Text of Dracula [Author's Preface, Chapters 1-27] - with copious annotations on each page [the text is `chopped' into columns with the notes to the side]
Appendix 1: "Dracula's Guest"
Appendix 2: The Dating of Dracula
Appendix 3: The Chronology of Dracula
Appendix 4: A Whitby Glossary
Part II : Considering the Count [examines fictional accounts, Dracula in academia, on stage and screen, his family tree, and friends] and finally Klinger provides a comprehensive bibliography and textual sources.

To further enhance this glorious work - besides the 1500 or so annotations , there are about 400 illustrations [B&W and full-color] of photographs, playbills, diagrams, maps, advertisements, pictures of cinematic stills etc.


Amazon here

Loving True Blood in Dallas book suggestion: The Dead Travel Fast

One morning while Eric Nuzum sleepily munched his Count Chocula at breakfast, he realized he was surrounded by vampires. Not literally, of course. News stories, advertising, television shows-it seemed vampires were everywhere. Motivated by curiosity, this National Public Radio employee decided to research people's fascination with the mythical blood sucker, resulting in The Dead Travel Fast, a very humorous research/travelogue title.
Nuzum first decided to attempt to watch every vampire movie ever made. He details how Nosferatu and Bela Lugosi's Dracula were made, providing interesting reading for film buffs. The list also includes Samurai Vampire Bikers from Hell, Rockabilly Vampire, and Atom Age Vampire. There are a surprising number of interesting facts interspersed with the narrative, particularly about Bram Stoker's novel Dracula. Nuzum and his very skeptical wife travel to England, tracing the locations mentioned in the book. Stoker was a stickler for setting. Nuzum gives a nice background about what may have motivated Stoker to write his classic horror story, and how it's been interpreted and reinterpreted through the years. The chapter in which he travels by tour bus through Romania to research Vlad Tepes (the "real" count Dracula, who was very pro-impalement) is the funniest travelogue I've read.
Think you've had a bad family vacation? Nope. Nuzum's travelling companions included Butch Patrick, "Eddie" from The Munsters-who spent most of his time asleep. The trip included a dog bite, an infected mosquito bite, sinking boats, an emotionally disturbed monk, and lots of vomiting. After eating a Romanian "American-style" pizza, which included fried eggs, venison and goat cheese, let's just say things were a bit messy on the bus.

buy from amazon here

Listen to NPR interview HERE

Erics blog HERE

Thanks Redmercury for the suggestion