Not only does Sookie have the ability to listen to your thoughts, but she also has the ability to impair my ability to blog.  Why you may ask?  Well because her creator, Charlaine Harris, author of the Sookie Stackhouse novels, also the basis for a little show we know as True Blood (whose new season begins, ummm…June 26th!  Who’s sitting in front of the TV, waiting to be bitten?  I am!  You should too.), pulls you into a world set in Bon Temps, Louisiana.  A world of vampires, shapeshifters, and other supernatural creatures.  Who has a Harry Potter void? I do!  My void, however, has become smaller, largely due to Ms. Harris’ series.  
    So, I am traveling through Southern California, and I did want to share my experiences with the meerkat and the panda at the San Diego Zoo and the Kansas BBQ aka Top Gun bar in San Diego, the Bubble Store and Taco Loco in Laguna, Betrali’s B&B restaurant in Vegas, the kayaking experience with the seals I didn’t go on in La Jolla, watching “Heathers” at the Hollywood Forever Cemetary next to Johnny Ramone’s plot in duh? Hollywood, the Griffith Observatory and Say Cheese in Los Feliz, the medical marijuana pushers and canals at Venice Beach, the Asian workers walking on my back for $20 at the Reseda Foot Relaxology in Reseda, the haunted Colorado State Bridge known as the Suicide Bridge in Pasadena, Rodeo Drive and the Willshire Hotel and Tiffany’s where I wanted to eat a croissant with dark glasses in Beverly Hills, Tim Burton’s exhibit at the LACMA, Musso & Frank’s and the Chinese Theater and hooking on Hollywood Blvd…I wanted to share those experiences with you and I will.  But I couldn’t.  Why?  Sookie.  
    I just finished “Dead Until Dark” in a few days because my friend loaned it to me and he wasn’t going to let me just take it back to MIA with me, and there was no way I was going to be in some sort of limbo until my return, so I’m done.  Now I’ve moved onto the second in the series, which my dear child brought with her (have I mentioned that my kid hid the awesomeness of this series because I tend to get a little competitive with her? Just because I would ground her from reading the Twilight series we were sharing so that I could have them all to myself.  Doesn’t every parent do that?!).  Anyways, it’s awesome.  “Dead Until Dark” was well written, engaging, and no, you don’t know everything that will happen because it is different from the HBO series, “True Blood” (June 26th!) despite it being the basis for the series.  Read it.  Love it. Fill your Potter void or if you’re a Twilight fan, your Mormon void.  
    I give “Dead Until Dark” 4 bloody fangs.