In the 10th volume of the series focusing on Sookie Stackhouse, whom many of you might be most familiar with as a result of the successful True Blood series on HBO, family takes center stags as Sookie and her friends all recover from the rough events in the previous books, Dead and Gone. Most of the characters, and the reader along with them, get to further explore their familial ties.

For Sookie herself, that takes on the form of what is left of her faery-kin. Her cousin Claude is now one of the few remaining fae living in our realm aft the Faery War. He is feeling lonely and asks to move in with her to have some company. His loneliness is particularly strong now that his sister (Sookie's literal fairy godmother) is dead. Their shared faery family is going to prove to have a few more surprises in store for them even as they have all supposedly been closed off from our world.

Eric Norseman also gets a surprise visit when his maker, Apius Livia Ocella arrives along with a brother no one seemed to have known about. The brother turns out to be Alexei Romanov, the tsaraivich of Russian who was supposedly killed by the Bolsheviks during the Red Revolution. His experiences then have left him less than stable, which is going to cause no shortage of trouble for Eric, Sookie, and the others.

Bill Compton is really in rough shape after experiencing iron poisoning. While he and Sookie broke up much earlier, she still considers him a friend and wants to help. After learning that he might have a sister, whose blood could help cure him, Sookie goes "undercover" to not only find her, but try to convince her to come and help the brother she has not seen in decades.

The Weres in Sookie's life are starting to see the consequences of following the vampires in "coming out of the coffin." The only problem is that the governemnt is talking about requiring the double-natured to register as vampires have had to, and few are happy. Sam and Jason both provide interesting perspectives on what their new public lifestyles mean for the dual-natured and their families.

To make matters worse, the Weres, who are using Sookie's land for an event, realize that there is a surprise body on the property .... just what Sookie needs, another dead body in her life.

I thought this was a really fun addition to the series. Rather than having a single plotline that pulled all the characters together, this volume allowed the shared theme of families to produce a series of subplots that were nicely woven together. Besides being entertaining, it allows readers to get some good exposure to all of their favorite characters. Those who are only familiar with the television series are likely to be very confused because of the differences, but they will find comfort in the fact that beloved characters are still enjoying life among the living ... and the undead.