My wife wants to know why all Charlaine Harris' books are 291 pages. Has the author ever spoke about this?

Wish I could help you out here, but I don't have a clue what the significance of the number is.

However, I'm quite interested in the fact that it's accomplished. I believe it was Poe who would predict the length of his short stories and would end up writing exactly that number (or pretty damn close to it). I want to say Steinbeck did the same, but I can't be too sure on that one. It's remarkable. Maybe it's just the gift? A signature, if you will.

Dead Until Dark-292

Living Dead In Dallas-291

Club Dead-292

Dead To The World-291

Dead As A Doornail-295

Definitely Dead-324

All Together Dead-323

From Dead To Worse-303

Dead And Gone-312

All of these books are in the Sookie Stackhouse Novels. After reading your question, I went all the way upstairs to go look at my books and see if this is true; that they all end at 291, because I knew some didn't. But it is kind of weird that some of the books do end on the same page and how they end so close to each other. I really don't know the reason why she ends around that page number. Maybe it is just a coincidence. Harris hasn't said anything on the page numbers from what I know so I don't know. But that is a good observation.

Hope this helps :)

It's because she writes to spec.

If the books she was contracted to write are supposed to be 100,000 words long, she will deliver that many, within a few hundred, give or take.

The publishers will also format the books to 291 pages to save on paper costs. If they go over a certain number of pages, the costs jump dramatically.

;>)