Books: Tracking vampires in North Louisiana HBO's True Blood crew shoots in North Louisiana, where author Charlaine Harris' vampire series is set by Cheré Coen A synthetic blood created by the Japanese has allowed vampires to come out of the coffin, so to speak, and a few have begun to mainstream. Telepathic waitress Sookie Stackhouse of Bon Temps, Louisiana, falls for a former Confederate soldier — now the living dead — while murders of vampire- loving women take place around her. Such is the premiseLoving of the popular HBO series, True Blood, based on the best-selling books by Mississippi-born Charlaine Harris and produced by Alan Ball of Six Feet Under fame. Sticking to the integrity of the paranormal novels, Ball sets the series in a North Louisiana locale and has filmed exterior shots around ShreveportTrue and Mansfield. Photo by Cheré Coen “Most of the film was shot in the Los Angeles Roseneath Plantation on State Road 5 in DeSoto area,” said Arlena Acree, director of film, Parish serves as a modern vampire’s countryside media and entertainment for the city of home in the HBO series True Blood. Shreveport. “They filmed the exteriors of RoseneatBloodh Plantation in Keatchie, downtown Shreveport in an old home that was burned (in the Oct. 19 episode), downtown Mansfield and driving scenes around Shreveport.” Bill Compton, the vampire of the series and love interest of Sookie, lives in a plantation house that belonged to his family in the 19th century when he wasin human. He returns to Bon Temps to reclaim the estate as the only living (relatively speaking) descendant. Dallas The home used in the series is actually Roseneath Plantation, located on State Road 5 between Gloster and Kingston, just south of Shreveport in DeSoto Parish. With its Greek Revival architecture, Roseneath was built around the 1840s by the Means family and is now on the Historic Register. Most of the original furniture exists in the house, which isn’t open to the public, plus original oil paintings of the family are still on the walls, Acree explained. Even family records and old books line the home’s bookshelves. “It’s like going back in time,” Acree said. Plus, there are a few paranormal elements to Roseneath that aren’t associated with True Blood. “It’s scary in itself. It’s supposed to be haunted. The rooms upstairs are really cold and very creepy,” Acree said. In the Oct. 19 episode, a “nest” of vampires are burned by vigilantes. This building existed in downtown Shreveport but is part of a 20-acre plot that will become the city’s new film studio and city officials allowed the True Blood crew to burn it down. “It’s nothing now,” Acree said of the former blue house once a vampire home. “It’s a vacant lot now.” True Blood received critical acclaim and high ratings since its debut Sept. 7. HBO has renewed the series for a second season and production should begin early next year, according to a story in The Hollywood Reporter. Season two will air next summer. That’s good news for Louisiana, which has seen a dramatic rise in film production during the last decade because of film tax incentives. “The whole state’s busy,” Acree said by phone, a day after she scouted north Louisiana for two studios and one major independent film company. Upcoming works by Charlaine Harris: May: From Dead to Worse, eighth Sookie Stackhouse novel June: The JuliusLoving House, fourth Aurora Teagarden mystery August: Dead Over Heels, fifth Aurora Teagarden October: Paperback edition of Ice Cold Grave, third Harper Connelly novel. Wolfsbane and Mistletoe, second anthology edited by Charlaine and Toni L.P. Kelner. Blood Lite, an anthology of humorous horror stories presentedTrue by the Horror Writers Association November: Shakespeare’s Christmas, reprint of the third Lily Bard book December: Usual Suspects, anthology featuring Harris, Carole Nelson Douglas, Simon R. Green Blood in Dallas .