From Dead to Worse characters

Appears from the start

A telepathic waitress at Merlotte's bar in Bon Temps, Louisiana, in a world where vampires live openly and other supernatural people do not. She is still recovering, in body and nerve, from the bombing of a vampire summit in Rhodes, where her warning saved lives but left her injured and shaken. Her romance with the weretiger Quinn has stalled while he recovers elsewhere, she remains bound to the vampire Eric Northman by exchanged blood, and she is beginning to accept that her family carries something other than human blood.

Appears from the start

A very old Viking-turned-vampire who runs the bar Fangtasia in Shreveport and governs the surrounding territory as sheriff for the queen of Louisiana. Practical, self-interested, and hard to read, he is tied to Sookie by a blood bond that lets each sense the other's feelings, an arrangement she resents and he does not apologize for. With the queen's power broken by hurricane and bombing, he is one of the few Louisiana vampires with any strength left.

Appears from the start

Sookie's neighbor across the cemetery and her first love, a Civil War veteran turned vampire who returned to Bon Temps to reclaim his family land. Their romance ended badly and their dealings are now polite and cold. He is a distant ancestor of the local Bellefleur family, whom he has quietly enriched, and he works for the state's vampire authority compiling a database of the undead.

Appears from the start

The owner of Merlotte's and Sookie's employer, a shapeshifter who can take any animal form and usually chooses a collie. Steady, protective, and discreet about what he is, he is one of the few people who has known about Sookie's telepathy for years and treated her normally anyway.

Appears from the start

Sookie's older brother, a road crew supervisor with a talent for charm and a poor record with women. Bitten and turned into a werepanther, he has married Crystal Norris of the isolated panther community at Hotshot, a marriage that is already strained.

Appears from the start

A New Orleans witch who lost her home to the hurricane and has been lodging in Sookie's upstairs rooms ever since. Confident and talkative, she is a capable practitioner with a habit of attempting spells beyond her level, most notably the one that turned her boyfriend Bob into a cat she has never managed to change back.

First appears in chapter 2

Amelia's mentor and a senior witch of the New Orleans coven, displaced by the storm and staying in Bon Temps. Dignified, exacting, and far more powerful than her student, she disapproves of Amelia's improvisations and treats magic as a discipline rather than an experiment.

First appears in chapter 3

A fairy prince of enormous age and authority who makes himself known to Sookie and explains that he is her great-grandfather: his son Fintan fathered Sookie's father and aunt. Courtly, affectionate, and evasive about the politics of his own people, he offers Sookie a relationship he has withheld all her life and only hints at why he stayed away.

First appears in chapter 5

A Shreveport surveyor and werewolf, son of the late Jackson Herveaux, and an old friend of Sookie's whose feelings for her have never quite settled. He lost the contest for leadership of the Long Tooth pack and has been living under a packmaster who does not trust him. He asks Sookie, as a declared friend of the pack, to lend her telepathy to pack business.

First appears in chapter 6

A Shreveport motorcycle dealer and the packmaster of the Long Tooth werewolves, who won his position in a contest fought against Alcide's father. He is suspicious of Alcide's ambitions and openly resentful of Sookie's involvement in pack affairs.

First appears in chapter 8

Sookie's fairy godmother in the literal sense, a tall, beautiful full-blooded fairy who appears when Sookie is in danger and tries to steer her out of it. Warm and protective, she is related to Sookie through Niall's line and works a day job in a department store between rescues.

First appears in chapter 12

The vampire queen of Louisiana, a girl in appearance and centuries old in fact, whose court in New Orleans was wrecked by the hurricane and whose body was maimed in the Rhodes bombing. She is Sookie's nominal employer, having bought Sookie's telepathic services, and she is far weaker now than her rivals in other states realize.

First appears in chapter 14

The vampire king of Nevada, based in Las Vegas, a courteous Spaniard with an old-world manner and an eye for opportunity. He arrives in Louisiana at the head of an organized force at the moment the state is least able to resist him.

First appears in chapter 14

A cheerful, immaculately dressed vampire lieutenant of Felipe de Castro, sent from Nevada as part of the move on Louisiana. His friendliness is unvarying and tells the listener nothing about what he intends.

First appears in chapter 18

A weretiger who works as an event organizer for the supernatural world and who was Sookie's boyfriend before the Rhodes bombing left him badly hurt. His obligations to his mother and sister have repeatedly come before everything else, including his promises to Sookie, and his long silence has left the relationship in doubt.

First appears in chapter 20

A small boy living in the town of Red Ditch with his father, Remy Savoy. He is the son of Sookie's dead cousin Hadley, which makes him Sookie's closest living blood relative besides Jason, and he can hear other people's thoughts exactly as Sookie can.