From Dead to Worse recap

Sookie Stackhouse comes home from the Rhodes bombing to a Louisiana whose supernatural order is collapsing. A fairy prince named Niall Brigant introduces himself as her great-grandfather and begins courting her company. The Shreveport werewolf pack tears itself apart when packmaster Patrick Furnan moves against Alcide Herveaux; Sookie is drawn into the fighting, Alcide's girlfriend is murdered, and Alcide ends the war as packmaster. Then the vampire king of Nevada, Felipe de Castro, invades a Louisiana left defenseless by hurricane and bombing, kills Queen Sophie-Anne and her people, and takes the state. Eric survives by swearing to the new king, and Sookie is spared as a valuable asset. In the aftermath Sookie discovers that her dead cousin Hadley left a small son, Hunter, who is telepathic like her, ends her stalled romance with Quinn, and learns that Bill Compton was originally sent to Bon Temps under orders to seduce her.

Sookie Stackhouse is a telepathic waitress in Bon Temps, Louisiana, in a world where vampires have publicly revealed themselves and other supernatural people have not. She has loved and lost the vampire Bill Compton, been sold as a telepathic asset to Sophie-Anne Leclerq, the vampire queen of Louisiana, and formed a difficult attachment to Eric Northman, the sheriff of her region, to whom she is now tied by a blood bond that lets each feel the other's emotions. She has survived a kidnapping by the anti-vampire Fellowship of the Sun, the murderous politics of the Shreveport werewolf pack, and the death of her cousin Hadley in New Orleans. Most recently she attended a vampire summit in Rhodes, where a bomb planted by extremists destroyed the hotel; her warning saved lives, but the Louisiana delegation was gutted and the queen was crippled. A hurricane had already ruined the queen's New Orleans holdings. Sookie's romance with the weretiger Quinn is unresolved, her New Orleans housemate Amelia is a witch with a boyfriend stuck in the shape of a cat, and Sookie has begun to suspect her family carries fairy blood.

Sookie is still healing from the Rhodes bombing when ordinary life resumes: she serves as a bridesmaid at a double Bellefleur wedding at Belle Rive, where the town's small snobberies play out against her memory of the hotel collapse. Amelia's mentor Octavia Fant, displaced from New Orleans by the storm, arrives and installs herself in the house, which does nothing for Amelia's confidence about the spell that turned her boyfriend into a cat. Quinn is still absent and still not calling. Into this comes a stranger of extraordinary presence who introduces himself as Niall Brigant, a fairy prince, and tells Sookie that he is her great-grandfather: his son Fintan fathered Sookie's father and aunt. He is affectionate, entirely unapologetic about the years of silence, and vague about why he has chosen to appear now.

Sookie begins to understand what her fairy descent means, including why vampires find her so appealing. Eric tells her that the memories he lost during his period of amnesia, when he stayed in her house and they were briefly happy together, have come back to him entirely, which changes the balance between them without resolving anything. Jason's marriage to Crystal Norris is failing publicly and the Hotshot werepanthers are unhappy about it. Alcide Herveaux asks Sookie, as a declared friend of the Long Tooth pack, to attend pack business and use her telepathy; packmaster Patrick Furnan resents both the request and Alcide's standing, and the ill-feeling between the two men hardens into open hostility.

The quarrel in the Long Tooth pack becomes a war. Alcide's girlfriend Maria-Star Cooper is murdered and other pack members are attacked, and Furnan brings in outside wolves to finish the job. Sookie is pulled into the fighting on Alcide's side and is hurt in a pitched battle that leaves dead on both sides. Furnan is killed and Alcide takes the pack as packmaster, inheriting a group that has lost badly needed people and a leadership he wanted on very different terms. Sookie, who now owes and is owed by the wolves, finds her obligations in the supernatural world multiplying faster than she can refuse them.

The weakness of Louisiana's vampires has been noticed outside the state. Felipe de Castro, the vampire king of Nevada, moves on Louisiana with an organized force while Queen Sophie-Anne is still maimed and her court still scattered. The takeover is swift and bloody: the queen is destroyed along with most of her household, and vampires across the state are given the choice of allegiance or death. Eric survives, swears to the new king, and keeps his territory. Sookie, present when the Nevada people arrive, is spared and openly identified as an asset worth keeping, which is protection and a leash at the same time. Felipe's lieutenant Victor Madden stays behind, all courtesy and no reassurance.

Louisiana settles uneasily under Nevada rule, with Victor Madden installed as regent above Eric and every vampire in the state recalculating where they stand. Sookie's household changes too: Octavia finally undoes Amelia's botched spell and restores Bob to human shape, whereupon he leaves Amelia, and the witches' living arrangement grows more crowded and less comfortable. Sookie also learns that her cousin Hadley, who died in New Orleans, left behind a young son by an earlier marriage, and begins working out whether she has any right to approach the boy or his father.

Sigebert, the last of Queen Sophie-Anne's bodyguards, has survived the takeover and blames Sookie and Eric for his mistress's death. He ambushes them and is destroyed, closing the old regime's last account. Quinn resurfaces at last, still putting his mother and sister ahead of everything he has promised Sookie, and Sookie tells him plainly that they are finished. The break is calm rather than angry, and it leaves her without any partner at all while her ties to Eric and to vampire politics keep tightening.

Sookie drives to Red Ditch and meets Remy Savoy and his small son Hunter, her cousin Hadley's child. The boy is telepathic exactly as she is, and the two of them recognize each other instantly; Sookie promises Remy she will help the child learn to live with a gift nobody ever helped her with. Then the last of her illusions goes: she learns that Bill Compton came to Bon Temps on the queen's orders, sent to find Sookie and make her his, because the queen already knew what her telepathy and her blood were worth. Everything that followed between them began as an assignment. Sookie tells Bill she wants nothing further from him. She ends the book with a fairy prince for a great-grandfather, a small cousin who shares her curse, a new vampire king who owns the state and considers her useful, and no partner at all.

Louisiana ends the book under Nevada rule. Felipe de Castro's takeover destroys Queen Sophie-Anne and most of her household; Eric survives by swearing allegiance, keeps his sheriff's territory, and is given Victor Madden as a regent placed over him. Sookie is spared and formally acknowledged as an asset of the new regime, which protects her and ties her more tightly to vampire politics than ever. Sigebert, the queen's last surviving bodyguard, attacks Sookie and Eric in revenge and is destroyed. Among the werewolves, the Long Tooth pack war ends with Patrick Furnan dead and Alcide Herveaux installed as packmaster, at the cost of several pack members including Alcide's girlfriend Maria-Star. Sookie's private life is remade rather than repaired: she accepts Niall Brigant as her great-grandfather and the fairy blood that comes with him, she ends her relationship with Quinn for good, and she finds a living relative she did not know she had in Hunter, her cousin Hadley's telepathic young son. She also learns that Bill's arrival in Bon Temps was never chance but an assignment from the queen, and cuts him out of her confidence. Amelia, having lost her mentor's respect and had her boyfriend restored to human form only for him to leave, remains under Sookie's roof.