After thirteen novels and a successful television series, best-selling author Charlaine Harris has decided it’s time to say goodbye to the plucky telepathic waitress from the Deep South and her handsome vampire cohorts Bill and Eric.
Harris was in New Zealand to promote the latest book in the Sookie Stackhouse series, Deadlocked.
She revealed to Good Morning why she’s closing the chapter on her most popular book series.
“I’d been writing Sookie for so many years, I wrote the first one maybe fifteen years ago, and I just felt like it was time for a change,” Harris explains.
“I felt that the heart was going out of my effort to write the series and I don’t want to give a book that’s less than heartfelt.”
With the worldwide popularity of her novels and the attention from the success of the True Blood television series, Harris admits that she’s living the writer’s dream.
“This is about as good as it gets for a writer.”
Watch Charlaine Harris' Good Morning interview below:
Harris also confessed that initially she felt Kiwi actress Anna Paquin didn’t match up to her own vision of a blonde, blue eyed and buxom Sookie Stackhouse.
“I had the character alive in my head and no actress could match that really,” she admits.
“However she really has done so wonderfully in the role. I can’t imagine anyone else now.”
After fifteen years writing about vampires and all things supernatural, Harris insists that she’d never want Sookie’s special powers.
“That would be terrible,” she says. “I like being human. I like the arc of my life very much.”
With the final Sookie Stackhouse novel already written, Harris already has several new project lined up to keep her busy, including a graphic novel and a completely new book series.
“I’m writing a graphic novel in three parts with Christopher Golden. That’s quite a challenge, I’ve never done that before.”
While she’s already focused on what comes next, Harris admits it will be hard to say goodbye to her longest running heroine, Sookie.
“In some ways it will be hard cause she’s lived with me so long. In other ways I’m really looking forward to doing something different.”
The thirteenth and final Sookie Stackhouse novel will be realised in May 2013.