Grave Surprise

core novel 2006 The Southern Vampire Mysteries

Record

First published	2006
Original language	EN
Work type	novel
Canon status	core
Reader rating	3.91 (38,632 ratings, collected 2026-10-29)
First-edition ISBN	9780425212035
Internal chronology	2

Synopsis

Harper Connelly, who can sense the dead and relive their final moments, is invited by a skeptical anthropology professor, Clyde Nunley, to prove her gift in an old cemetery in Memphis. She correctly identifies who lies in each grave until she senses a body that should not be there: a fresh corpse lying in the wrong grave, in a cemetery where nothing recent should be buried. As she and her stepbrother Tolliver are drawn into the investigation, they meet the flamboyant psychic Xylda Bernardo and her grandson Manfred, and the morning after the discovery a third body turns up in the very same grave.

Where it sits

• Universe: The Southern Vampire Mysteries
• Series: Harper Connelly Mysteries core; position 2 of 4 in the series' recorded order
• Author: Charlaine Harris

Notes

• From the series record (Harper Connelly Mysteries): Four supernatural mysteries, Berkley, 2005 to 2009.

Neighbouring works

Publication order and internal chronology are tracked as two separate orderings and are never conflated: a book's place in one says nothing about its place in the other.

• Publication order, within the series Harper Connelly Mysteries: position 2 of 4: previous Grave Sight (2005) · next An Ice Cold Grave (2007)
• Internal chronology, within The Southern Vampire Mysteries: position 5 of 20: previous Living Dead in Dallas (2002) · next Day Shift (2015)

Sources

• Wikipedia: Harper Connelly Mysteries
• Charlaine Harris official site: Harper Connelly series
• Publishers Weekly: Grave Surprise
• Penguin Random House: A Harper Connelly Mystery series
• Doux Reviews: Grave Surprise

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