Review by Sandy Amazeen
Apr 30, 2007

To say cocktail waitress Sookie Stackhouse leads an unusual life would be an understatement. As a telepath, she has always found “normal” relationships difficult at best, thus her love life includes vampires and wereanimals as they don’t bombard her the way regular humans do. Her abilities have drawn the attention of some powerful vampires including Sophie-Anne, the Queen of Louisiana whose power base has taken a severe hit in the wake of hurricane Katrina. Sookie has been hired by the Louisiana delegation to accompany them to the long awaited vampire summit in Rhodes where she may also have to testify at a vampire trial involving the Queen. As if all the political maneuvering isn’t bad enough, Sookie must also deal with two ex-lovers and her handsome new beau Quinn who is one of the few remaining weretigers.

While at the summit, Sookie is delighted to be reunited with Barry, the only other telepath she’s ever met. Tensions mount and it soon becomes clear that conflicting private agendas seek to undermine the Queen, derail the summit and maybe something much worse. It falls to Sookie and Barry to ferret out the truth but the clock is ticking for humans and the undead alike as a group of fanatics seek to undermine the summit regardless of the cost.

It’s nice to see Sookie becoming more worldly as she spends very little time in her hometown in this exciting new addition to the Southern Vampire series. For all the politics of the summit, the action is lively and the pace quick enough to keep the reader engaged to the last page. The climax, while not surprising is satisfying and sets Sookie and Barry up for some interesting future conflicts as they inadvertently drew unwanted attention to themselves. This is a great addition to one of the more entertaining series in the paranormal genre.