Dead Until Dark by Charlaine Harris is the first book of the Sookie Stackhouse novels. These are the same novels that the HBO series True Blood is based on. Now I have only seen the 1st 3 episodes of True Blood and what I saw, well, really didn't impress me. I'm not sure if it was the writing or the actors. But I couldn't get hooked on it. I do have it on my Netflix rotation to see the entire 1st season but that's kind of down the road.
I did pick up the first novel, Dead Until Dark. It is the same storyline as the television series with a few differences. There are some characters in the tv series not in the book and vice versa. I have to say that I really did enjoy the book A LOT more than the tv series. I'm very much looking forward to picking up the second book!
My suggestion, if you didn't like the tv series, try the book.