Tara Mae Thornton is a fictional character in Charlaine Harris' The Southern Vampire Mysteries and its television adaptation, HBO's True Blood.

Tara Mae Thornton is a Louisiana native in her twenties and lifelong friend of the main protagonist, Sookie Stackhouse.

[1] In Living Dead in Dallas, Tara is engaged to "Eggs" Benedict Talley, but this relationship ends when a secret sex party they attend goes awry.

She then opens up a clothing store called "Tara's Togs" and briefly dates the vampire Franklin Mott.

Despite enduring years of abuse, neglect, and disappointment from her mother, Tara still cares about Lettie Mae's well-being.

Franklin mixes romantic talk of turning her into a vampire with coercive actions, while Tara attempts to soothe him with compliance while plotting her own escape.

When Sam reveals his shape-shifting secret to her, she leaves his house and goes back to her mother's, where she finds Lettie Mae in an intimate situation with Reverend Daniels.

Overwhelmed, Tara leaves Bon Temps for New Orleans, where she changes her first name to Toni and finds work as an MMA-style cage fighter.

Tara starts a relationship with another fighter, Naomi, but eventually returns to Bon Temps and, through her association with the medium Marnie Stonebrook, becomes entangled in the vampires' battle against necromancy.

Shortly afterward, she pushes Sookie out of the way of a shotgun blast from Debbie Pelt, and the buckshot hits Tara in the head and neck.

After being shot and left for dead, Tara is turned into a vampire by Pamela Swynford De Beaufort at the request of Lafayette and Sookie.

As the fifth season progresses, Tara becomes more comfortable with her new life, befriends fellow new vampire Jessica Hamby, and begins to develop romantic feelings for Pam.

The group escapes when Bill breaks into the camp and feeds the vampires his faerie-infused blood, which allows them to briefly walk in sunlight.