True Blood Author Charlaine Harris to Publish New Series

Charlaine Harris, author of the popular True Blood books, will release the first in a new trilogy of novels next year.

Charlaine Harris, author of the novels that inspired HBO’s True Blood, will release the first installment in a new book series next year. Called Texoma, the new novel will hit shelves in 2018. Other than that, details on Harris’ latest trilogy are kind of scarce.

We know that Texoma will be based on one of Harris’ earlier short stories, called “The Gunnie”. It takes place in an alternate history of the United States, which sees the country weakened by the Great Depression and the assassination of FDR. As a result, the U.S. splits into five separate territories: New Britannia, New America, Dixie, the Holy Russian Empire and Texoma.

The central mystery of Texoma focuses on a character named Lizabeth Rose. She’s an independent female mercenary working for Russian sorcerers in a Mexican border town. (Trust me, this is a pretty mild set up as far as Harris novels go.) No word yet on if we can expect to see any vampires or werewolves along the way. But the sorcerers make it seem like a solid possibility.

As an author, Harris is best known for her Southern Vampire mystery novels. This 13-book series formed the basis for popular HBO drama True Blood that starred Anna Paquin as telepathic waitress Sookie Stackhouse. Harris published the series’ final installment, Dead Ever After,  in 2013. (Spoiler alert: As with the TV series, the novels’ conclusion is…controversial.)

However, Harris is a rather prolific writer, with several other series beyond the Sookie books to her credit. These novels include the Aurora Teagarden, Lily Bard and Harper Connelly mysteries. Harris’ most recent series, the Midnight, Texas trilogy, concluded in 2016. (But you’ll still be hearing about it for a while. It’s about to be an NBC show.)

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Texoma will hit shelves in Fall 2018.