Delve into the events that shaped these individuals into the characters you know and love. Be warned these are not cheerful stories; most often strong characters are forged in the flames of fire and torment. Some will have their happy ending, while others never expect redemption. While you can, of course, read this collection at any point, the author suggests that to get the most out of it, it should be read after Book 4 in the Hellcat Series. She feels that is when the reader will most appreciate and understand the effects these background stories have on the characters and those around them. She also says Hellions RULE!

    Investigating a series of horrific murders, grave desecrations, and missing persons, Kiera uses her unique ability of seeing, and soon realizes her own life is in danger. When Kiera falls for police officer Luke Bishop, not only are her mind and heart opened to a terrifyingly new world, she comes to suspect that Luke might be involved in the killings. In a race against time to unearth the truth, Kiera must discover the identity of who - or what - is behind the gruesome deaths on her Vampire Shift. "Vampire Shift" is Book One of The Kiera Hudson Series One.

     Her life is wrecked overnight by a single man—Cyrus, who seems to think she’s someone important in his bloody world. But they won’t know the truth until she’s dead, and he’s very anxious to help her get there. But Logan isn’t going down without a fight. She makes him a deal. She will die, but first he must spend a month getting to know her, a month to change his mind. What she doesn’t expect is a month filled with displays of incredible wealth, spontaneous trips across the country, and unbelievable acts of immortal power. And as Logan spends her last days with Cyrus, she stops seeing the monster and begins to see a lonely, broken man she can’t walk away from. If she isn’t careful, it won’t just be her life she loses at the end of the month, but her heart as well...

    Then a PI showed up, asking about a missing ex of mine. A corpse and a vampire attack later, I've got a guardian dragging me further in to the world of magic with a gift of magic I never knew I had. Now I'm getting pulled into vampire politics, the arcane drug wars, and trying to get the hang of magic. Saving my own skin, much less anyone else's, is looking like a tall order now...

    When she comes home to New York City, she wants just two things: a little peace, and answers about the unsolved murder and why she was abandoned in the middle of America at the age of eight.Greer Sinclair, an enigmatic stranger who knows a little bit more than he should, just might give her both–and more if she’ll let him.What is she?What is he? Who is this beguiling satyr who keeps coming between them? She attracts the otherworldly like moths to a flame. And why does every stranger on the streets of Manhattan want a piece of her and that pendant hanging around her pretty little neck?Maybe the answers are in a peculiar shop in the heart of Greenwich Village where ghosts, memories, and secrets are bursting from the walls and the books and the one person who knows her best. The line between the mundane and supernatural worlds is starting to blur. Which side will she choose? Which would you?

    The most exciting event was the arrival of the Lockwood family. Hailey spent her days attending her last year of high school and running her parents coffee shop. Everything changes one night, when Lation Lockwood walks into her parent’s coffee shop. The events of the night turn Hailey’s world upside down when she discovers the entire Lockwood family’s secret. Her life is suddenly in danger when she meets Lation’s brother, Peirce. Peirce is unlike any man she has ever met. She soon learns he isn’t exactly a man. She is instantly attracted to him even though Lation, Peirce’s brother, saw her first. Hailey attempts to stay alive, and keep the people she loves out of danger as she gets caught up in a world she never imagined existed. To complicate her life even more, Peirce claims ownership over her. Hailey attempts to resist Peirce’s hold, all while trying to remain sane as she fights to find her place in this new unfamiliar world of darkness. Hailey soon finds herself a vampire’s possession, when Peirce refuses to let her go.

    He doesn’t like it, but unfortunately he’s been saddled with a divine commission to dole out judgment on those who shed innocent blood. After seventy years as a cold-blooded murder machine, however, Levi’s trying to change his grisly nature. And the AA meetings and church services are helping. A little. But when he runs across a wounded girl, Sally Ryder, during one of his “hunting expeditions,” he realizes self-help may have to go on the back burner.Someone is attempting to revive a pre-Babylonian murder god, and the road to rebirth is paved with dead bodies. Lots and lots of them.Now, Levi must protect Ryder—the key to an unspeakable resurrection—and defeat a Nazi mage from Levi’s murky past. But the shadowy mage holds a terrible secret about the Mudman’s unorthodox birth, one offering insight into Levi’s morbid compulsion for bloodshed. It’s a secret Levi would pay anything to uncover: maybe even Ryder’s life. If Levi isn’t careful, he may end up turning into the monster he always imagined himself to be.

    Chapters: Living Dead in Dallas, Dead to the World, Definitely Dead, Club Dead, Dead Until Dark, Dead as a Doornail, Dead and Gone, All Together Dead, From Dead to Worse, a Touch of Dead, Dead in the Family. Excerpt: A Touch of Dead A Touch of Dead is a collection of short stories from Charlaine Harris 's series The Southern Vampire Mysteries . This title was released on October 6th, 2009. This book only contains the short stories Harris has published in which Sookie Stackhouse is present. Stories References (URLs online) A hyperlinked version of this chapter is at All Together Dead All Together Dead is the seventh book in Charlaine Harris 's series The Southern Vampire Mysteries . After being betrayed by her vampire love, Bill Compton, Sookie Stackhouse attends an all-important central U.S. Vampire Summit on the shores of Lake Michigan as a "human geiger counter" for Sophie-Anne Leclerq, Vampire Queen of Louisiana and who will be tried during the event for murdering her husband, King of Arkansas. The summit is a tense situation. The queen is in a precarious position, her power base weakened by hurricane damage to New Orleans. And there are some vamps who would like to finish what nature started. Sookie knows the queen is innocent, but she is hardly prepared for other shocking murders, not to mention protests by the Fellowship of the Sun, a right-wing anti-vampire movement. Sookie's bond with Eric Northman gets closer and she discovers Quinn 's past. Plot summary The summit, which has attracted undead power players from all over the central United States, is sure to be tense, due in no small part to the rampi...