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SFF Author: Charlaine Harris

(1951- )
Charlaine Harris was raised in the Mississippi River Delta area. Though her early works consisted largely of poems about ghosts and, later, teenage angst, she wrote plays when she attended Rhodes College in Memphis, Tennessee. She began to write books a few years later. HBO’s True Blood series is based on her SOOKIE STACKHOUSE books. Harris is a member of the Mystery Writers of America, the American Crime Writers League, and the board of Sisters in Crime. She alternates with Joan Hess as president of the Arkansas Mystery Writers Alliance. Charlaine Harris is married and the mother of three. She lives in a small town in Southern Arkansas and when she is not writing her own books, she reads omnivorously. Learn more Charlaine Harris’s website.

Dead Until Dark: Sookie Stackhouse is a delight!

Dead Until Dark by Charlaine Harris

Charles de Lint said once that the current urban-fantasy novels are highly focused on character, and that readers like or dislike a series based on whether they connect with the protagonist. (I wish I could find that quote!) Based on this, I’m not surprised that Charlaine Harris has, as I write this review, the top three best-selling fantasy titles on Amazon. Disclaimer: I’ve only read this first book so far, and haven’t seen the TV series. But from what I’ve seen, Sookie Stackhouse is a delight.

Kelly Lasiter and Kat Hooper´s rating: 2.5, 4 | Charlaine Harris | SFF Reviews | no comments |

The Pretenders: A first-rate opening to this YA graphic trilogy

Cemetery Girl: The Pretenders by Charlaine Harris & Christopher Golden

“I’m pretty sure I died. For like, a minute, at least.”

Against a blue and black background, a spidery streak of lightning illuminates the sign, Dunhill Cemetery. In the second frame, a car appears, twin spots of red, the brake lights, gleaming like eyes as a shadowy figure unloads another figure from the trunk and hurls it down a defile. That’s how Cemetery Girl: The Pretenders, by Charlaine Harris and Christopher Golden opens.

An Easy Death: Sorcery and fast guns in an alternate-history America

An Easy Death by Charlaine Harris

In An Easy Death (2018) the first book of her latest series, GUNNIE ROSE, Charlaine Harris introduces readers to Lizbeth Rose, a nineteen-year-old “gunnie” (gunslinger) living in what was once the United States of America — until Franklin Roosevelt was assassinated before becoming the thirty-second President, and the ensuing chaos fractured the country into different regions, each with their own laws and social codes. Operating with a crew as a gun for hire is lucrative work,

Jana Nyman and Tadiana Jones | Charlaine Harris | SFF Reviews | no comments |

A Longer Fall: Weird West collides with Deep South

A Longer Fall by Charlaine Harris

Charlaine Harris’s GUNNIE ROSE series has already merged Old West, Russian magicians (called “grigori” in a nod to Rasputin), and alternative history; the setting is mid-twentieth century North America, in which the United States has fractured into multiple nations, including the “Holy Russian Empire,” with Tsar Alexei at its head, taking over what used to be California and Oregon. In A Longer Fall (2020), the second book in the series, the pre-civil rights era deep South gets pulled into the mix.

Tadiana Jones and Jana Nyman´s rating: 3 | Charlaine Harris | SFF Reviews | no comments |

The Russian Cage: Jailbreak and conspiracies in Russian America

The Russian Cage by Charlaine Harris

Charlaine Harris’s alternative history/urban fantasy GUNNIE ROSE series shifts to a new setting in this third book in the series, The Russian Cage (2021), one that was foreshadowed by the ending of the prior book, A Longer Fall. Lizbeth Rose, who makes her living as a hired gun or “gunnie,” receives an intentionally cryptic letter from her younger half-sister, Felicia. For the past year, Felicia has been living in what once was California,

Tadiana Jones´s rating: 3.5 | Charlaine Harris | SFF Reviews | no comments |

Strange Brew: Something for everyone

Strange Brew by P.N. Elrod (ed)

The theme of Strange Brew is witchcraft. This anthology features nine well-known urban fantasy authors, each with their own spin on the theme. Some of these stories feature well-known characters. Others focus on characters who are secondary in the author’s series, or characters who are entirely new. Glancing at the table of contents and doing a little mental math, most of the stories are around 40 pages, give or take a few. (The longest is Karen Chance’s at just under 60.) As is always the case with anthologies,

Death’s Excellent Vacation: A good audiobook for your next vacation

Death’s Excellent Vacation by Charlaine Harris and Toni L.P. Kelner (eds)

Even paranormal creatures need to get away from it all sometimes. In Death’s Excellent Vacation, editors Charlaine Harris and Toni L.P. Kelner present a collection of thirteen stories tied together by the theme of “vacation.”

The “headliners,” as evidenced by whose names are in big type above the title, are Harris, Katie MacAlister, and Jeaniene Frost. Each of these three authors contributes a vignette from one of her popular series: Sookie Stackhouse,

Dark Duets: A horror anthology

Dark Duets edited by Christopher Golden

Christopher Golden explains in his introduction to Dark Duets that writing is a solitary occupation right up until that moment an alchemical reaction takes place and a bolt of inspiration simultaneously strikes two writers who are friends. Golden has found that the results of collaboration are often fascinating and sometimes magical, as when Stephen King and Peter Straub teamed up to write The Talisman. Writing is an intimate,

Terry Weyna´s rating: 3 | Amber Benson, Carrie Ryan, Cassandra Clare, Charlaine Harris, Christopher Golden, Gregory Frost, Holly Black, Joe R. Lansdale, Jonathan Maberry, Kevin J. Anderson, Rachel Caine, Rick Hautala, Robert Jackson Bennett, Sarah Rees Brennan, Sherrilyn Kenyon, Tim Lebbon | Horror, Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |

Urban Allies: Will please many fans of urban and paranormal fantasy

Urban Allies edited by Joseph Nassise

I’m always impressed when authors work together, and in Urban Allies, editor Joseph Nassise has managed to pair up twenty authors who not only collaborate, but merge their own characters into ten brand-new and original adventures. Each story shares a similar theme: popular characters from existing series or novels meet up and must join forces in order to defeat a common threat. Since these are urban fantasy authors, every story has a supernatural or paranormal aspect, though the situations and resolutions are completely unique to each tale,

Jana Nyman´s rating: 4 | C.E. Murphy, Caitlin Kittredge, Carrie Vaughn, Charlaine Harris, Christopher Golden, David Wellington, Diana Rowland, Jaye Wells, Jonathan Maberry, Joseph Nassise, Kat Richardson, Kelley Armstrong, Larry Correia, Seanan McGuire | Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |

World Fantasy Convention 2011: Day Two

I’m reporting about Day 2 today. Read about Day One here.

There were lots of interesting panels today, and it was frustrating to try to boil them down into the ones I wanted to see.

My first choice was “Retelling Old Stories: The New Fairy Tales.” I’ve got all the modern fairy tale collections edited by Terri Windling and Ellen Datlow and many other rewritings, so I was eager to hear this discussion, and it didn’t disappoint. The first question addressed by the panel was the obvious one: why rewrite fairy tales?

Terry Weyna | Charlaine Harris, Connie Willis, Elizabeth Bear, Graham Joyce, Jessica Day George, John Connolly, Kate Elliott, Louise Marley, Malinda Lo, Melinda Snodgrass, Neil Gaiman | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |

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