When people start making improvements to their homes, it can bring out the worst in them. It can also unearth some of the most temperamental and hateful creatures you've ever had the misfortune to meet. Some of them don't even bother introducing themselves to you. They just stick around all invisible and make the air poisonous with their venom that eventually you're going to have affecting you.

In this edition of Charlaine Harris and Toni L.P. Kelner's anthologies, they have tackled the topic of home improvements and how creatures of the undead would fit in. What they came up with is an entertaining and, often, chilling assortment of tales centered on improving houses. To begin with, there's a never before published Sookie Stackhouse story that is sure to delight fans of that series. Sookie and Sam are helping Tara and her husband remodel a sun porch to turn it into a bedroom for Tara's twins. Everything goes along pretty well until an old blood stained hammer turns up from inside the wall. After that, nothing seems to go right. The story behind the hammer and the way they resolve it makes for a very entertaining ghost story.

Meet Broahm, a wizard in the story Wizard Home Security, written by Victor Gischler. He's been having some issues with break-ins at his home and his supplies and spells have been stolen. Obviously, his security isn't strong enough so he hires a young wizard with security as his specialty to beef up the safety on his house. Needless to say, Broahm never saw it backfiring on him.

Vampire Elyna Gray wants to buy a condo so that she can remodel it to become her home. She also has some very personal ties to this place that she's not willing to share with just anyone. Problems soon hit, though, as she crosses the wrong vampire in this captivating story by Patricia Briggs.

Rochelle Krich offers Squatter's Rights, the story of a couple that moves into a house with a bad history with plans to make it their own. It doesn't take long before the bad vibes start to take over the wife, and that's not a good sign.

Famous writer Heather Graham offers a story of a home of a different kind. Entitled Blood on the Wall, this story is set in New Orleans, where someone, or something, is going around ripping people to shreds.

James Grady brings The Mansion of Imperatives to this "short story party." Two couples decide to totally renovate an old Gothic style home only to find that evil definitely exists and it can make you do what it wants.

The Strength Inside is presented by Melissa Marr in her story of other worldly beings trying to co-exist with humans. It also begs the question of just how evil the Homeowner's Association can be.

Toni L. P. Kelner ends the anthology with In Brightest Day with a cheerful little tale of a woman that raises the dead for a living. Her current "client" just keeps dying---again--- before he can complete what he was brought back to do.

There are so many things to say about HOME IMPROVEMENT: UNDEAD EDITION. These are delightful, entertaining and chilling stories. Some of them you'll be carrying around in your head for days. Do yourself a favor and spend a rainy afternoon with this book.

Book Summary

There's nothing like home renovation for finding skeletons in the closet or otherwordly portals in the attic. Now, for any homeowner who's ever wondered, "What's that creaking sound?" or fans of "how to" television who'd like a little unreality mixed in with their reality shows, editors Charlaine Harris and Toni L. P. Kelner return with an all-new collection of the paranormal perils of Do-It-Yourself.

Sookie Stackhouse resides in these pages, in a never-before-published story by #1 New York Times bestselling author Charlaine Harris. And New York Times bestselling authors Patricia Briggs, James Grady, Heather Graham, Melissa Marr, and nine other outstanding writers have constructed more frightening and funny fixer-upper tales guaranteed to shake foundations and rattle readers' pipes.