Vampire-Loving Barmaid Hits Jackpot for Charlaine Harris - New York Times

MAGNOLIA, Ark. — Charlaine Harris was sitting in the small dining nook of her suburban cedar-and-stone home one afternoon last week when she took the call from her editor in New York. After she hung up, she yanked both fists down and let out a triumphant, “Yes!”

Anna Paquin and Stephen Moyer in “True Blood” on HBO, based on Ms. Harris’s “Dead Until Dark.”

Ms. Harris, the author of the Sookie Stackhouse vampire mystery romance novels, had just heard that the latest book in the series, “Dead and Gone,” would make its debut on the New York Times hardcover fiction best-seller list this Sunday in the No. 1 spot. It was a first for Ms. Harris, who has published 26 novels in nearly three decades and sold the original book in the Sookie series, “Dead Until Dark,” for just $5,000 nine years ago.

When her husband, Harold Schulz, arrived home from work later, he stepped into Ms. Harris’s office in a converted mother-in-law apartment next to the house. “No. 1, huh?” he calmly noted with a smile.

But with their daughter Julia’s high school graduation looming this week, he wanted to know whether all six acres of the lawn on their property had been mowed, and when certain family members would be arriving.

It was the kind of juggle that might be familiar to Sookie, the telepathic human barmaid who narrates the novels and lives in the fictional small town of Bon Temps, La., amid an ever-expanding cast of vampires, shape-shifters, fairies and witches.

Read on