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'Sookie Stackhouse' series will end this May

The 'Sookie Stackhouse' series by Charlaine Harris – the basis for HBO's 'True Blood' TV show – will wrap up with the release of the 13th book, 'Dead Ever After.'

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John P. Johnson/HBO
'True Blood' stars Alexander Skarsgard (l.) and Stephen Moyer (r.).
  • By Molly Driscoll Staff Writer

The story of Sookie Stackhouse and her supernatural friends is coming to a close.

The series by author Charlaine Harris – which is the basis for HBO’s “True Blood” TV show – will end with the publication of the 13th and final book, “Dead Ever After,” on May 7.  According to the plot summary released by the book’s publisher, Penguin Group, Sookie will find herself under suspicion for murder as she tries to decide what to do about her relationship with vampire Eric.

The "Sookie Stackhouse" series began in 2001 with the book “Dead Until Dark,” and a book has been published every year since.

“Probably by the second book, I had an idea where I wanted the books to end,” Harris told USA Today. “I began to feel the creativity of the series was wearing thin and I hate to keep on writing characters when I've lost my love for them. So it seemed time to end the series while I was still happy with what I was doing.” 

The author said she assumed there would be some fans of the books that wouldn’t be pleased with the ending, since various readers root for different couples to be together. Sookie has often been the subject of a love triangle between gallant Bill Compton and morally conflicted Eric Northman, two vampires.

“I just realized a few books ago that there was no way I could make everybody happy so I just had to settle on doing what I thought was right,” Harris said.

Dangling plotlines that weren’t addressed in “Ever After” will be wrapped up in a book that will be released in October, she said. It will be titled “After Dead: What Came Next in the World of Sookie Stackhouse.”

“There's just no way I could write a book with all the characters that people really care about and say what happened to them after the books ended,” she said.

The HBO series based on the novels first aired in 2008 and takes its name from the synthetic blood that vampires in Harris’s world drink to slake their craving for the real thing. The TV show centers on the same characters as the "Sookie Stackhouse" series, but stories often wildly differ from the narratives of the books. On the show, actress Anna Paquin plays Sookie, while actor Stephen Moyer portrays Bill and “Melancholia” actor Alexander Skarsgard plays Eric.

“True Blood” begins its sixth season June 16.

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