Dead in the Family recap

Sookie is recovering badly from her torture when Eric's maker, the Roman vampire Appius Livius Ocella, arrives uninvited with his other child, Alexei Romanov, a boy vampire out of the murdered Russian imperial family whose mind never survived what was done to him. Alexei's presence destabilizes everything: he escapes control, kills Eric's day man and one of his vampires, and forces a hunt through the woods behind Sookie's house that ends with both Alexei and Appius destroyed. Alongside this, a body is found buried on Sookie's land and proves to be Alcide's second, Basim al Saud, killed by his own pack for conspiring against the packmaster, and a grieving fairy named Colman comes to make Sookie pay for Claudine's death and dies in the same night's fighting. Sookie's cousins Claude and Dermot settle into her house, Bill slowly heals, and Sookie begins teaching Hunter to manage his telepathy before he starts school.

Sookie Stackhouse is a telepathic waitress in Bon Temps, Louisiana, where vampires live openly and the world's shapeshifters and werewolves have now revealed themselves too. Louisiana belongs to Felipe de Castro of Nevada, who conquered it after a bombing and a hurricane left the old queen helpless, and his regent Victor Madden sits over Eric Northman, the vampire sheriff Sookie is married to by vampire custom. Sookie is part fairy through her great-grandfather Prince Niall Brigant. A fairy war fought over Niall's human-blooded descendants nearly killed her: she was abducted and tortured by two of the enemy's servants, her fairy godmother Claudine and her bodyguard Tray Dawson were killed, and Bill Compton was poisoned saving her. Niall ended the war and then closed Faery permanently, stranding part-fairies such as Claude and Dermot on the human side. Sookie's brother Jason is a widower after his wife Crystal's murder, and Sookie has a small telepathic cousin, Hunter, whom she is quietly helping.

Sookie is healing far more slowly than she admits. The scars are visible and the fear is not: she jumps at noises, avoids the woods, and cannot make herself feel safe in her own house. Claude, grieving his sister and locked out of Faery, invites himself to live with her, and Dermot begins turning up as well, working on the house and behaving as though his thoughts are not entirely his own. Bill remains weak from the fairy poisoning and will not explain why he is not recovering. Then Eric tells Sookie that his maker is coming: Appius Livius Ocella, who turned him more than a thousand years ago and whose authority over him has never lapsed. Appius arrives with a companion, a vampire in the body of a boy, and installs himself in Eric's life without being asked.

The boy is Alexei Romanov, Appius's other child, taken out of the massacre of the Russian imperial family and never made whole afterward. He is charming when he chooses and frightening when he does not, and Appius manages him the way one manages a fire. Eric, reduced by his maker's presence to something less than the sheriff he is, cannot refuse either of them. Elsewhere, Alcide asks to use Sookie's woods for the pack's runs, and his second, Basim al Saud, reports that a body has been buried on her property and that fairies have been on the land. Sookie also spends a day with Hunter, teaching him what to do with the thoughts he cannot help hearing before he starts school and gives himself away.

Alexei's condition worsens. He slips his keepers, and Appius's confidence that he can be contained looks increasingly like denial. At the same time Sookie learns she is being hunted on her own account: Colman, a fairy who was Claudine's lover and the father of her unborn child, blames Sookie for Claudine's death and has been circling the property. The buried body on her land is dug up and the pack's own politics close around it. Victor Madden keeps pressing Eric, opening a rival bar in Shreveport and testing how much humiliation the sheriff will absorb, and Eric has no attention to spare for it while his maker is under his roof.

Alexei breaks loose completely. He kills Eric's day man Bobby Burnham and the vampire Felicia, and Appius finally admits he cannot control his own child. Eric, Pam and the rest of the Shreveport vampires organize a hunt, and Sookie's house at the edge of the woods becomes the place it converges on. Bill, still weak, comes anyway. The buried body is confirmed as Basim al Saud, and the reason for his death lies inside Alcide's pack rather than outside it, which does nothing to make Sookie's land less dangerous while a maddened vampire and a vengeful fairy are both loose in the trees.

The hunt ends in the woods behind Sookie's house in a confused, bloody fight. Alexei is destroyed, and Appius dies of the injuries his own child inflicted, so Eric loses the maker who had unbalanced his whole life and grieves him despite everything. Colman is killed in the same night, ending the vendetta for Claudine. Sookie is injured yet again and left with the aftermath rather than any triumph. Basim's killing is settled inside the werewolf pack: he had been conspiring against Alcide and the pack's enforcer dealt with him, and Sookie's land is finally cleared of it. Bill begins to recover at last. Claude and Dermot stay on in the house, Dermot still not himself, and Sookie ends the book with a household of stranded fairy relatives, a husband whose obligations to his maker are finally over, and Victor Madden still waiting.

The visit from Eric's maker ends in the woods behind Sookie's house. Alexei, past any control, has already killed Eric's day man Bobby Burnham and the vampire Felicia, and the final fight destroys both him and Appius Livius Ocella, who dies of the wounds his own child gave him. Colman, the fairy who came to avenge Claudine, dies in the same night's violence, ending that debt. Sookie is hurt again but alive, and Eric is left grieving a maker he both loved and could never refuse, with the ties to his own past finally cut. The body buried on Sookie's land is identified as Alcide's second, Basim al Saud, killed by the Long Tooth pack after he was found to be working against Alcide; the pack settles the matter internally and Sookie's land is cleared. Bill's poisoning is finally healed and he begins to recover his strength. Claude and Dermot remain in Sookie's house, Dermot still under whatever was done to his mind, and Sookie has found a place for herself as the person teaching Hunter how to live with telepathy. Victor Madden's rivalry with Eric is unresolved and getting worse.