American writer Charlaine Harris’s Sookie Stackhouse mystery novels are also known as the Southern Vampire Mysteries and as the source material for the True Blood television series made by Alan Ball. However you may have discovered the series, you now find yourself looking for a list of all the Sookie Stackhouse books in order.
Be prepared to be swept away by them as you step into Sookie Stackhouse’s rather different reality.
Sookie Stackhouse’s world is depicted so persuasively that it becomes completely convincing and ordinary. It is, however, a world of heightened sensibility populated by magical beings, vampires, and were creatures.
Who is Charlaine Harris?
Charlaine Harris is a well-known American mystery writer born in the Mississippi Delta to a farmer-turned-school principal and a librarian. She is best known for The Southern Vampire Mysteries, adapted for TV as the series entitled True Blood, which was a financial and critical success.
Apart from the Sookie Stackhouse series, which falls in the urban fantasy genre, her work includes the Aurora Teagarden series, the Lily Bard mysteries, the Harper Connelly series, the Midnight, Texas trilogy, and several more.
Many of her books have been bestsellers and her work has been translated into multiple languages and is published worldwide.
Charlaine Harris is a very interesting person in many other ways. She’s married, has three children, is a passionate film buff and reader, as well as a former weightlifter and karate student! She belongs to the St James Episcopal Church.
She is a member of the American Crime Writers League, the Mystery Writers of America, Sisters in Crime, and the Arkansas Mystery Writers Alliance.
Who is Sookie Stackhouse?
Sookie Stackhouse is the main protagonist of the 13 books that comprise the Sookie Stackhouse series. Sookie is a pretty, ordinary girl, but she has an interesting ability (more about that later).
Apart from that, she’s simply an unassuming cocktail waitress in a restaurant called Merlotte’s Bar and Grill in the fictional little one-horse town of Bon Temps, Louisiana. She’s a quiet person who minds her own business and doesn’t really get out much.
However, truth to tell, there is a bit more to Sookie than meets the eye. She is a human/fairy hybrid. Consequently, she’s also a telepath, which means that she can read your mind (the little “ability” we referred to earlier!). It makes dating somewhat problematic, hence Sookie’s quiet life.
Which is exactly why she finds tall, dark, and good-looking Bill Compton so irresistible, because she can’t read his mind at all! Is he not exactly the type of man she’s been wanting to meet all her life? However, Bill has a bit of a secret as well, and his is significantly more serious than hers. That’s because Bill is a vampire.
All of this makes reading the Sookie Stackhouse books in order an enjoyable experience as you learn more about her quirky character.
1 – Sookie Stackhouse Books in Order of Publication
The first way you can read the Sookie Stackhouse books in order is in following the publication order, which we have included below. If you are a newcomer to this series, this is the order we would recommend you reading the series in before diving into the intricacies of including the short stories, novellas, and anthologies.
- Dead Until Dark (2001)
- Living Dead in Dallas (2002)
- Club Dead (2003)
- Dead to the World (2004)
- Dead as a Doornail (2005)
- Definitely Dead (2006)
- All Together Dead (2007)
- From Dead to Worse (2008)
- Dead and Gone (2009)
- Dead in the Family (2010)
- Dead Reckoning (2011)
- Deadlocked (2012)
- Dead Ever After (2013)
Short Stories, Novellas, and Anthologies
If you have already read all of the Sookie Stackhouse books in order and are eager for more content, Charlaine Harris has written multiple short stories, novellas, and anthologies set in this world. Below find all the additional Sookie Stackhouse stories.
- Fairy Dust (2004)
- One Word Answer (2004)
- Dancers in the Dark (2004)
- Tacky (2006)
- Lucky (2008)
- Gift Wrap (2008)
- Bacon (2009)
- The Britlingens Go To Hell (2009)
- Dracula Night (2009)
- A Touch of Dead (2009)
- Dahlia Underground (2010)
- Two Blondes (2010)
- If I Had a Hammer (2011)
- Small-Town Wedding (2011)
- Death by Dahlia (2011)
- Playing Possum (2012)
- After Dead: What Came Next in the World of Sookie Stackhouse (2013)
- The Blue Hereafter (2014)
- The Complete Sookie Stackhouse Stories (2017)
- Dead But Not Forgotten: Stories from the World of Sookie Stackhouse (2021)
2 – Sookie Stackhouse Books in Chronological Order
The second way you can read the Sookie Stackhouse books and stories is in chronological order. This order is only recommended if you have already read this series and are looking for a new way to experience it.
The below list includes the main books, short stories, novellas, and anthologies. If you already adore this series this is an interesting way to experience the books and track each character’s movement and progression throughout the series.
- Dead Until Dark
- Living Dead in Dallas
- Club Dead
- Dead to the World
- A Touch of Dead
- Fairy Dust
- Dancers in the Dark
- Dracula Night
- Dead as a Doornail
- One Word Answer
- Definitely Dead
- Tacky
- All Together Dead
- Lucky
- Dahlia Underground
- From Dead to Worse
- Gift Wrap
- Bacon
- Dead and Gone
- The Britlingens Go To Hell
- Two Blondes
- Dead in the Family
- Small-Town Wedding
- Dead Reckoning
- Death by Dahlia
- Deadlocked
- If I Had a Hammer
- Playing Possum
- Dead Ever After
- The Blue Hereafter
- After Dead: What Came Next in the World of Sookie Stackhouse
The below books are compilations of the short stories included in the list above. Therefore, they take place across various moments in the chronological timeline.
- The Complete Sookie Stackhouse Stories
- Dead But Not Forgotten: Stories from the World of Sookie Stackhouse
True Blood Adaptation
The Sookie Stackhouse books in order were adapted into the popular TV series True Blood that ran on air for seven seasons. Unfortunately, like many popular shows that span multiple seasons, what started with a bang was ushered out with a whimper. Both fans and critics alike were unhappy with how the series ended with its seventh season in 2014.
Which is why so many fans were ecstatic when the possibility of a reboot was first announced in December 2020, but unfortunately that reboot has since been cancelled. A lack of direction was the reason given for the cancellation.
The show veered away from the books very early on in its run. Despite this, the show was still regarded in a favorable light until the last two seasons had a decline in ratings.
Just like the books, the show brought Bon Temps, Louisiana to life. It starred Anna Paquin as Sookie Stackhouse, Stephen Moyer as Bill Compton, Sam Trammell as Sam Merlotte, and Alexander Skarsgård as Eric Northman.
Summary of the Sookie Stackhouse Books
Here are brief summaries for the Sookie Stackhouse book in order. We have also slotted in some short stories and collections where we believe they will be most relevant and helpful to you.
1. Dead Until Dark
A quiet, unassuming cocktail waitress, Sookie Stackhouse tends to keep to herself. She doesn’t really date because of her ability to read minds. Human minds are a tiring distraction that she seeks to avoid as much as she can.
So when she meets tall, dark and handsome Bill Compton, Sookie is immediately attracted and intrigued. His mind is a completely closed book to her which offers her a wonderful respite. And, after all, vampires are now legal citizens since the Japanese have developed synthetic “true blood” that vampires can feed on instead of human blood.
Is Bill not the ideal man she’s been waiting for all of her life? But when a coworker is killed, having a vampire as a boyfriend seems less of a good idea…
2. Living Dead in Dallas
Cocktail waitress Sookie Stackhouse is having a streak of bad luck. First her co-worker is killed, and no one seems to care. 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 the bloodsuckers asks for a favor, she obliges — and soon Sookie’s in Dallas, using her telepathic skills to search for a missing vampire. She’s supposed to interview certain humans involved, but she makes one condition: The vampires must promise to behave and let the humans go unharmed.
But that’s easier said than done, and all it takes is one delicious blonde and one small mistake for things to turn deadly…
3. Club Dead
Things between cocktail waitress Sookie and her vampire boyfriend Bill seem to be going excellently (apart from the small matter of him being undead) until he leaves town for a while. A long while.
Bill’s sinister boss Eric has an idea of where to find him, so he whisks Sookie off to Jackson, Mississippi to mingle with the under-underworld at Club Dead. When she finally catches up with her errant vampire boyfriend, he is in big trouble and caught in an act of serious betrayal. This raises serious doubts as to whether she should save him or start sharpening a few stakes of her own…
4. Dead to the World
Sookie Stackhouse is a cocktail waitress in Bon Temps, Louisiana. She has only a few close friends, because not everyone appreciates Sookie’s gift: She can read minds.
That’s not exactly every man’s idea of date bait — unless they’re undead, because vampires and the like can be tough to read. And that’s just the kind of guy Sookie’s been looking for.
Maybe that’s why, when she comes across a naked vampire, she doesn’t just drive on by. He hasn’t got a clue who he is, but Sookie has: Eric looks just as scary and sexy — and dead — as ever. But now he has amnesia, he’s sweet, vulnerable, and in need of Sookie’s help — because whoever took his memory now wants his life.
4.1 – A Touch of Dead
This collection by Charlaine Harris contains all the Sookie Stackhouse short stories published up until 2009 in one volume.
4.2 – Powers of Detection: Stories of Mystery & Fantasy
This collection by Dana Stabenow features the story Fairy Dust by Charlaine Harris.
4.3 – Dead of Night
This collection features Dancers in the Dark by Charlaine Harris. It takes place in the Sookieverse and features three-hundred-year-old redheaded vampire Sean and dancer Layla Rue Le May.
4.4 – Many Bloody Returns
This collection features Dracula Night by Charlaine Harris.
5. Dead as a Doornail
Small-town cocktail waitress Sookie Stackhouse has had more than her share of experience with the supernatural, but now it’s really hitting close to home. When Sookie sees her brother Jason’s eyes start to change, she knows he’s about to turn into a were-panther for the first time. A transformation he embraces more readily than most shapeshifters she knows.
But her concern becomes cold fear when a sniper sets his deadly sights on the local changeling population, and Jason’s new panther brethren suspect he may be the shooter. Now, Sookie has until the next full moon to find out who’s behind the attacks — unless the killer decides to find her first…
5.5 – One Word Answer
This short story One Word Answer takes place between books 5 and 6 of the full-length Sookie Stackhouse books. It is available by itself or within the anthology Bite by Laurell K. Hamilton.
6. Definitely Dead
Since Louisiana cocktail waitress Sookie Stackhouse has so few living relatives, she hates to lose one — even her cousin Hadley, undead consort of the vampire Queen of Louisiana.
Hadley’s left everything she has to Sookie, but claiming that inheritance has a high risk factor. Some people don’t want her looking too deeply into Hadley’s past, or Hadley’s possessions. And they’re ready to do anything in their power to stop her. Whoever it is, they’re definitely dangerous — and Sookie’s life is definitely on the line…
6.5 – My Big Fat Supernatural Wedding
Ordinary weddings can get pretty insane — what can happen when otherworldly beings are involved? This collection features Tacky by Charlaine Harris.
7. All Together Dead
Louisiana cocktail waitress Sookie Stackhouse has her hands full dealing with every sort of undead and paranormal creature imaginable.
And after being betrayed by her longtime vampire love, Sookie must not only deal with a new man in her life — the shapeshifter Quinn — but also contend with the long-planned and tense vampire summit.
The summit is a tense situation. The vampire queen of Louisiana is in a precarious position, her power base weakened by hurricane damage to New Orleans. And there are some vamps who would like to finish what nature started.
Soon, Sookie must decide what side she’ll stand with. And her choice may mean the difference between survival and all-out catastrophe.
7.5 – Unusual Suspects: Stories of Mystery & Fantasy
Edited by Dana Stabenow, this collection features magical investigators pursuing otherworldly criminals. It also includes the short story Lucky by Charlaine Harris.
7.5 – Between the Dark and the Daylight
More crime mystery stories edited by Ed Gorman. This collection also features the short story Lucky by Charlaine Harris.
7.6 – Crimes by Moonlight: Mysteries from the Dark Side
A new mystery anthology edited by Charlaine Harris featuring a new Sookie Stackhouse story: Dahlia Underground.
8. From Dead to Worse
After the natural disaster of Hurricane Katrina and the manmade explosion at the vampire summit, everyone human and otherwise is stressed, including Louisiana cocktail waitress Sookie Stackhouse, who is trying to cope with the fact that her boyfriend Quinn has gone missing.
It’s clear that things are changing whether the weres and vamps of her corner of Louisiana like it or not. And Sookie, Friend to the Pack and blood-bonded to Eric Northman, leader of the local vampire community is caught up in the changes.
In the ensuing battles, Sookie faces danger, death, and once more, betrayal by someone she loves. And when the fur has finished flying and the cold blood finished flowing, her world will be forever altered.
8.5 – Gift Wrap
Gift Wrap takes place before Dead And Gone.
8.5 – Wolfsbane and Mistletoe
Edited by Charlaine Harris and Toni L. P. Kelner this collection also features the short story Gift Wrap.
8.6 – Strange Brew
Edited by PN Elrod, this excellent collection contains Charlaine Harris’s Bacon, featuring Dahlia, the beautiful vampire.
9. Dead and Gone
The vamps have been out for years, and now the weres and shifters have decided 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 shapeshifter.
At first, the great revelation goes well. Then the horribly mutilated body of a were-panther is found in the parking lot of Merlotte’s, and Sookie agrees to use her telepathic talent to track down the murderer.
But there is a far greater danger than this killer threatening Bon Temps: A race of unhuman beings, older, more powerful, and far more secretive than the vampires or the werewolves, is preparing for war. And Sookie is an all-too-human pawn in their ages-old battle…
9.5 – Must Love Hellhounds
From New York Times bestselling authors Charlaine Harris, Nalini Singh, Ilona Andrews, and Meljean Brook come four paranormal tales of man’s worst friend. Harris’s contribution to this collection is The Britlingens Go To Hell.
9.6 – Death’s Excellent Vacation
Edited by Charlaine Harris and Toni L. P. Kelner, this stunning collection features Two Blondes by Charlaine Harris.
10. Dead in the Family
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. And Sookie’s tracking down a distant relation of her ailing neighbour (and ex), Vampire Bill Compton.
In addition to the multitude of family issues complicating her life, the werewolf pack of Shreveport has asked Sookie for a special favour, and since Sookie is an obliging young woman, she agrees. But this favour for the wolves has dire results for Sookie, who is still recovering from the trauma of her abduction during the Fairy War.
10.5 – The Sookie Stackhouse Companion
This definitive guide to the intriguing world of Sookie Stackhouse features the novella Small-Town Wedding by Charlaine Harris.
11. Dead Reckoning
With her knack for being in trouble’s way, Sookie witnesses the firebombing of Merlotte’s, the bar where she works. Since Sam Merlotte is well-known to be a shifter, suspicion falls immediately on the anti-shifters in the area.
Sookie suspects otherwise, but her attention is divided when she realizes that her lover Eric Northman and his “child” Pam are plotting to kill the vampire who is now their master. Gradually, Sookie is drawn into the plot-which is much more complicated than she knows…
11.5 – Down These Strange Streets
Edited by George R.R. Martin, this unmissable collection contains Death by Dahlia by Charlaine Harris.
12. Deadlocked
Growing up with telepathic abilities, Sookie Stackhouse realized early on that there are things she’d rather not know. An now that she’s an adult, she also realizes that some things she knows about, she’d rather not see — like Eric Northman feeding off another woman. A younger one.
There’s a thing or two she’d like to say about that, but she has to keep quiet — Felipe de Castro, the vampire king of Louisiana (and Arkansas and Nevada), is in town. It’s the worst possible time for a human body to show up in Eric’s front yard — especially the body of the woman whose blood he just drank.
Now it’s up to Sookie and Bill, the official Area Five investigator, to solve the murder. Sookie thinks that, at least this time, the dead girl’s fate has nothing to do with her. But she is wrong. She has an enemy, one far more devious than she would ever suspect, who’s set out to make Sookie’s world come crashing down.
12.5 – Home Improvement: Undead Edition
Edited by Charlaine Harris and Toni L. P. Kelner, this collection features If I Had a Hammer by Charlaine Harris.
12.6 – An Apple for the Creature
Edited by Charlaine Harris and featuring Playing Possum, Dahlia Underground, Two Blondes, Death by Dahlia, and If I Had a Hammer. Playing Possum is also available by itself.
13. Dead Ever After
Sookie Stackhouse finds it easy to turn down the request of former barmaid Arlene when she wants her job back at Merlotte’s. After all, Arlene tried to have Sookie killed.
But her relationship with Eric Northman is not so clearcut. He and his vampires are keeping their distance…and a cold silence. And when Sookie learns the reason why, she is devastated.
Then a shocking murder rocks Bon Temps, and Sookie is arrested for the crime.
But the evidence against Sookie is weak, and she makes bail. Investigating the killing, she’ll learn that what passes for truth in Bon Temps is only a convenient lie. What passes for justice is more spilled blood. And what passes for love is never enough…
13.5 – Games Creatures Play
Featuring The Blue Hereafter by Charlaine Harris
14. After Dead
Dead Ever After marked the end of the Sookie Stackhouse series — novels that garnered millions of fans and spawned the hit HBO television show True Blood. It also stoked a hunger that will never die…a hunger to know what happened next.
With characters arranged alphabetically — from the Ancient Pythoness to Bethany Zanelli — bestselling author Charlaine Harris takes fans into the future of their favorite residents of Bon Temps and environs. You’ll learn how Michele and Jason’s marriage fared, what happened to Sookie’s cousin Hunter, and whether Tara and JB’s twins grew up to be solid citizens.
Looking for more books in order?
The Sookie Stackhouse books will transport you to a world that feels contemporary despite its other-worldly elements. However, it is also sooo seductively and tantalizingly different you’ll start looking at your own reality just that little bit differently as well.
Now that we’ve taken a look at all the Sookie Stackhouse books in order, you may be interested in this list of The Dresden Files in order.