Despite the fact that in its last seasons it went a long way, it is undeniable that ‘True Blood’ was one of the key HBO series at the time and one of those responsible for the platform reaching the fame it has today. Behind this vampire story is the name of Charlaine Harrisa prolific American writer who has to her credit several sagas adapted to the audiovisual medium.
A mystery to Charlaine Harris
Born in 1951, in Mississippi (USA), Charlaine Harris started writing poems about ghosts and teen angst. Her debut in literature were two self-contained novels: ‘Sweet and deadly’ (1981) and ‘The hidden rage’ (1984), after which his first saga would come.
published the 11 ‘Aurora Teagarden’ books from 1990 to 2017, starring a librarian belonging to a very particular club who meets monthly to discuss unsolved murders… until things get too real.
In 2015, Hallmark Movies & Mysteries decided to adapt the saga into various TV movies titled ‘An Aurora Teagarden Mystery’. Starring Candace Cameron Bure, the television franchise reaches a total of 18 titles that adapt the different novels in unequal order. In Spain they are available through Amazon Prime Video.
Although Jessica Fletcher’s mysteries of this kind were Harris’s first foray into literary sagas, it was not the first of her books to be adapted for audiovisuals. That merit belongs to ‘Dead Till Dusk’which in 2001 would start the story of Sookie Stackhouse.
Also known as ‘The Southern Vampire Mysteries’ and made up of 13 novels (not counting the complementary books and stories), it presented us with the history of this telepathic waitress who was involved in vampire trouble and other creatures of the paranormal world.
Alan Ball (‘Six Feet Under’) noticed the great potential of the world created by Harris and acquired the rights to launch it in 2008 as a series for HBO. Renamed ‘True Blood’ (that’s what the characters called the synthetic blood that vampires drank), it coincided with the supernatural fever unleashed by ‘Twilight’ but offered a Wilder, coarser and more delirious alternative with Anna Paquin, Alexander Skarsgard and Stephen Moyer in the cast.
Despite the fact that it did not know how to maintain the level until the end, it was undoubtedly a series that helped HBO to consolidate itself as a differentiated brand in the world of series and remained on the air for seven seasons and 80 episodes.
After its outcome in 2014, Harris’s name was already established on television and the Aurora Teagarden telefilms arrived and, three years later, another adaptation of one of her sagas: ‘Midnight, Texas’published between 2014 and 2016 and starring a psychic who ends up settling in a town inhabited by witches, angels and other supernatural beings.
This time NBC was the chain interested in adapting this trilogy and Monica Owusu-Breen (‘Fringe’) served as creator and showrunner of the series. With much less resources than ‘True Blood’, it was canceled after only two seasons and 18 episodes. Although he was able to close all his plots, he left the door open to be able to continue in one more season that would adapt the third book and finally it could not be. It featured actors like François Arnaud (‘Blindspot’), Arielle Kebbell (‘Vampire Chronicles’) and Dylan Bruce (‘Orphan Black’).
The ‘Midnight, Texas’ novels, furthermore, They are set in the same world as ‘True Blood’ (characters from the saga appear and mentions are made of Sookie herself) although there was no cameo in the series, understandable considering that they belonged to different chains.
Apart from those, Harris has several sagas behind him: the pentalogy ‘Lily Bard (Shakespeare)’the tetralogy ‘Harper Connelly’the comics of ‘Cemetery Girl’ and the saga Gunnie Rose, which will shortly add its fifth installment. In his works we find elements of crime fiction, small town mysteries, supernatural romances and urban fantasy.
In Spain, only the saga of ‘Sookie Stackhouse’ has been published in its entirety, while ‘Aurora Teagarden’, ‘Midnight, Texas’ and ‘Harper Connelly’ were left unfinished. The last thing we have been able to see of his in these parts is the reissue of the first six books of the southern vampires and the first two of ‘Gunnie Rose’.
An author who has known move within the supernatural genre in an adult key and that, in addition to his television adaptations, he has also seen how his work was translated into the language of video games. Will we see any of his adapted sagas again soon? Of course, it will not be for lack of material.
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