@Robin: Yes, you develop Carolyn Jena’s point about how the lack of need for an HEA (maybe also due in part to the fact that it’s an open ended series) allows Harris to do these unusual things.

I will need both your professional full names before I submit my article to a journal because you are both going in the acknowledgements!

Sometimes it’s simply because they are of a different nature than Sookie, but sometimes it is because they are selfish or incapable of empathy or choose a competing priority over Sookie. Often it’s just plain thoughtlessness, but there are some real dangers lurking, as well, dangers that make Bill’s actions in the trunk seem almost mild, IMO.

In some ways this series strikes me as the “everything that never happens in Romance because it would impede the HEA” story of one woman’s desire to love and be loved unconditionally. There are moments where I hope Sookie will not be bound to any of these guys at the end of the series, and others where I hope against hope that one relationship will bring her the acceptance and comfort she seeks.

From what I understand, though, Harris is willing to risk reader disappointment to tell her story, so I have no idea what direction Sookie’s life is ultimately headed (which makes me extra anxious to read each installment, lol). This is, in fact, probably the only lengthy series I don’t resent having to purchase in hardcover.

And there is never the thought that Bill might rise above it, I mean, isn’t that sort of the trope? That he would have recognized her right off and been able to control it? His love for the heroine would do that? So I liked that. Honestly, I read it so long ago, though, I’m going off foggy memory on the specifics. But it was a fantastic scene.

Thanks for cluing me in to the rhythm of a series I am only halfway through. It’s so hard to see it from here. But now that you put it that way, yes, I can see that this book functions differently than the others.

Carolyn Jean,

I steered clear of the trunk scene, as you can tell. Ethically, I guess since Bill had no control (?), he cannot be blamed, although, again, I felt he did not show enough remorse. It was a really well written scene and one of the most brutal in the series so far. It reminded me as a reader that vampires are dangerous.

What did you think of it?

Does that trunk scene at all affect your view on her ethical journey?

This is also the book where people reaaally started to hate Bill, so I will forgive you if you cannot restrain yourself in your anti-Bill feelings.

Anyway, this series moves in an interesting rhythm, IMO, with some books functioning to really push things forward, some books setting up the future, some books tidying up from past books, etc. This book is a definite launching pad, IMO, and it makes me wonder if Harris’s initial contract was for the first three books, because after this one the series just seems to take off, IMO.