The men of Sookie Stackhouse: the case for Alcide Herveaux!

I read all the Sookie Stackhouse a.k.a. Southern Vampire Novels before I started this blog, so I don’t talk about them, but they hold a major place in my pantheon of fun and exciting books to read. And now the new one, From Dead to Worse, has come out! I’m not going to talk about that yet, except to say all the men of Sookie make a significant appearance: Alcide Herveaux, Tiger fella, Eric Northman and Vampire Bill Compton.

It is a little like Bachelorette in this way. I mean that as a compliment. Also, like Bachelorette, this series brings out the total girl in me. (While I don’t have time these days to watch Bachelorette, I’m glad to see that this time around it’s a woman choosing from men instead of one man choosing from a group of women. I always enjoy those so much better. In fact, I most enjoy the parts where it’s just the guys in the house, relating to each other. It’s sort of like an anthropological study.)

Anyway, I find myself fascinated by Sookie’s clothes, and her men. In fact, I angstfully yearn for her to be with one of them. Any one of them! I just have this drive to see Sookie paired up. Unlike other people, I would settle for Sookie to get back with Bill, and even Tiger guy. Of course, I would most prefer Eric for her. But I have been thinking lately about werewolf Alcide Herveaux, and wondering if he could be the one.

I have always really liked Alcide for Sookie; he makes a spectacular first appearance in Club Dead. Or actually, it’s not spectacular. It’s very toned down and gruff and direct, like Alcide. He’s a guy’s guy. He’s in surveying and construction. And she has a bit of a thing for him. In the first scene he’s in, he comes by because he’s being forced to chaperone her on this mission, and she makes him breakfast:

This was the way life was supposed to be, for normal people. It was morning, time to get up and work, time for a woman to cook breakfast for a a man, if he had to go out and earn. This big rough man was eating real food. He almost certainly had a pickup truck sitting out in front of my house.

Sookie is into that sort of thing. She even considers Calvin Norris at one point because he has a good job with benefits. I love that about Sookie. Back to Alcide.

Alcide Herveaux looked plenty tough. He was big as a boulder, with biceps that I could do pull-ups on. He would have to shave a second time if he planned on going out in the evening. He would fit right in on a construction site or a wharf.

He was a proper man.

Charlaine Harris has such incredible control over readers, and she describes guys in such a precise way that they can make short appearances, but they are set in stone in the readers’ minds, or at least my mind. Like, this:

He sat beside me and put his arm around me. He was so big and warm. He smelled like Tide detergent, and Irish Spring soap, and man.

I had a friend from India who was in an arranged marriage, and she really loved it. She was like, our socioeconomic and cultural backgrounds are perfectly suited, and we have grown to love each other. Oddly, my husband’s family lived an eerily parallel existence to ours in another state. My point here is that...hmmm, am I overanalyzing? My point anyway is that Alcide and Sookie actually, I think, are best suited for each other in that way.

Furthermore, when you inspect the books with the level attention that I do, I think there is evidence - scant, but it exists - that Alcide has a thing for Sookie. Will Charlaine Harris surprise us soon? I would be very happy to see this union.

Update: How could I have forgotten Sam?  Ames, thanks for  pointing this out. Sam is very much in the running! Opinions are divided on his desirability.