A review by kathydavie
The Sookie Stackhouse Companion by Charlaine Harris

5.0

"Small Town Wedding" is a short story in the Sookie Stackhouse series and, per Charlaine Harris, falls between Dead in the Family, 10, and Dead Reckoning, 11, making it 10.5.

My Take
The short story, "Small Town Wedding", was sweet. Family coming together, backing each other up. I loved the party after the wedding! I did not figure out how Sookie knew to head down to the pound.

Ooh, Quinn meets his "doom"! LOL, and so does Sarah Newlin...yes!

That takes care of the first 79 pages. After that, there's a huge chunk devoted to providing readers with a timeline of every Sookie Stackhouse book in the series, and it reads like an outline in summary format. Harris also provides a timeline for the short stories, although I still disagree about the chronology for "If I Had a Hammer". I know, the cheek of me! It's just that it wasn't until Dead Ever After, 13, that Tara started talking about needing to expand the house.

Oh, man, then there are the recipes!! Yummy!!

Questions from her fan club are answered. There's a guide to the characters in each story and a visit with Alan Bell who created the television series True Blood based on the Sookie Stackhouse series.

On the whole, I enjoyed the short story, and the majority of this is ideal for the Sookie Stackhouse fan who wants a bible of the series.

The Short Story
Sookie Stackhouse is heading out of town to Wright, Texas, with Sam Merlotte to go to his brother's, Craig's, wedding to Deidra Lisle. (His sister Mindy is already married to Doke Ballinger and they have two kids: Mason and Bonnie.)

It's already fraught as the shifters came out a short time ago, and Don shot Bernie, Sam's mom, when she changed in front of him, and now Deidra's parents have put off the wedding several times, worried about her marrying an animal!

But, hey, the townspeople have known the Merlottes for years, what could happen?

Other Characters include:
Eric Northman is her boyfriend; Bill Compton is her vampire neighbor still recovering from the silver poisoning. Victor Madden is Eric's boss. Tara is her pregnant friend and not due for three more months. Cousin Claude and Great-Uncle Dermot plan to stay at Claude's house while she's gone. Sam is dating Jannalyn, the enforcer for the Shreveport pack, but Sam had invited Sookie before he started dating Jannalyn. Thank god!

In Wright
Jim Collins is the Merlottes' miserable neighbor. Quinn is a weretiger whom Sookie once dated. He's with Trish Pulaski and Togo Olympio, worried about Sookie. Sister Mendoza and Rafe are sheriff's deputies in Wright and Sam's friends. Pastor Bart Arrowsmith has issues with which he'll need to deal; Nathan Arrowsmith is his son, the one holding the stink bomb. Jared Lisle is Deidra's brother in the service; he'll take a stand with them around the church. Porter Carpenter is one of the unhelpful cops.

More twoeys who show up to help include:
Brenda Sue, a trauma nurse; Luna Garza; and, Tijgerin, a weretigress with whom Quinn mates.

Sarah Newlin from the Fellowship of the Sun church organized the riot; and gets herself arrested after she shoots Jim Collins, her cohort in crime.

The Cover
The cover is, as usual, fun with Sam the collie hanging his head out the window of a red truck which is silhouetted against a sparkly full moon while Sookie drives, glancing back in fear at the bats flying around them.

The title is what it is: The Sookie Stackhouse Companion as it indexes the entire series.