'Night Shift' Midnight, Texas #3 by Charlaine Harris

Received via NetGalley

From the BLURB:

Welcome to the most intriguing mystery you'll read this year.

Welcome to Midnight, Texas.

At Midnight's local pawnshop, weapons are flying off the shelves-only to be used in sudden and dramatic suicides right at the main crossroads in town.

Who better to figure out why blood is being spilled than the vampire Lemuel, who, while translating mysterious texts, discovers what makes Midnight the town it is. There's a reason why witches and werewolves, killers and psychics, have been drawn to this place.

And now they must come together to stop the bloodshed in the heart of Midnight. For if all hell breaks loose-which just might happen-it will put the secretive town on the map, where no one wants it to be...

‘Night Shift’ is the third book in Charlaine Harris’ ‘Midnight, Texas’ urban fantasy series.

I must admit that I went into ‘Night Shift’ a little bit wary. I really, really disliked Harris’ sophomore effort in a series that brings minor and beloved characters from all her other series together … But second book ‘Day Shift’ lacked emotional heart for me, and largely because two of my favourite characters established in book #1 were inexplicably cut down. But I was quickly buoyed by ‘Night Shift’, because those two favourites – Fiji and Bobo – and their unrequited love affair was touched upon quickly, hinting that it’d be a lodestone for this instalment. And lo and behold, it was;

 Bobo had seemed a little broody for days, though no one was sure why. Fiji who was always aware of Bobo, was a little hyped by the fact that she was almost certain that he was staring at her even when she wasn’t speaking. She didn’t know why; she sadly suspected it was not for the same reason she liked to look at him. In fact, looking at Bobo was one of her favourite things to do.

Something is stirring underneath the town of Midnight, Texas. Strangers are being pulled to the town to commit suicide at the crossroads, and everyone in town is aware that this is just the prelude to a bigger bad waking … The best way to describe the action of ‘Night Shift’ is with this exchange between witch Fiji and psychic Manfred, which I loved because it speaks to a more menacing and intriguing “big bad” that’s plaguing the town of Midnight, and just because I love how meta it is that Charlaine Harris gives some love to ‘Buffy’ when she herself is the creator of what has become another iconic vampire series (there’s also mention of Fiji reading some Anne Rice, which also tickled my meta);

“Maybe you’re right, Manfred. Did you ever watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer?” 

The change of subject left him teetering. 

“Ah … sure. My grandmother loved it.” 

“Do you ever wonder if Midnight’s on the Hellmouth? Like Sunnydale?” 

Manfred laughed. “That’s exactly what it feels like,” he said. “You must be Willow, and Olivia must be Buffy. And Lemuel is Angel.” 

That brought a smile to Fiji’s face, too. “I would classify Olivia more as Faith,” she said. “Bobo can be Xander.” 

“So Diedrik would be Oz.” 

For a reason Manfred couldn’t fathom, Fiji flushed.
 

I loved the mystery at the heart of ‘Night Shift’, both because it’s more satisfying than the more human mysteries of the past two books and because Fiji very much gets to be at the centre of things. For this reason also, Bobo doesn’t get a lot of page time which I didn’t love … but I can appreciate this book being more Fiji’s show, Bobo had to remain a bit of a mystery to her (and therefore, to readers). I adore Fiji and any time Charlaine Harris chooses her as the series focus, the plot is vastly improved.

I also appreciated that Harris at least touched on a little mystery for Manfred, by mentioning the young woman he crushed on in book #1, but who has all but vanished from the series since; 

Manfred wondered how Creek Lovell was faring. He’d had a crush on her the size of a boulder, and he’d never figured out if it was returned.
 

I can’t find anything on the internet about whether or not ‘Midnight, Texas’ will continue beyond ‘Night Shift’ – but I sure hope so, for this little emotional nugget about Manfred and Creek, and also because my old favourite from Sookie’s world – Quinn, the weretiger – has hope in his heart by the end of ‘Night Shift’, and I’d love to see how it works out for him.

I really, really loved ‘Night Shift’ – even as things got a little ridiculous towards the end, I just found it great fun and really thought Harris hit her stride juggling all these characters and their relations against a menacing big bad. ‘Midnight, Texas’ is currently filming as a TV-movie, which I’m also ridiculously excited about (not least because Dylan Bruce – who played Paul in ‘Orphan Black’ is onboard to play Bobo!), and the IMDB description has it billed as “Twin Peaks meets True Blood” which is just so on-the-money I can’t stand it, and my hopes are up high.

‘Night Shift’ is Charlaine Harris at her tangled, paranormal-noir best – with beloved witch Fiji as the emotional centre of this instalment, plus a good subplot about Olivia and Lemuel and enough kernels of complication to leave fans hoping for more instalments … ‘Night Shift’ is the high of this series so far, and I want more.

5/5

'Day Shift' Midnight, Texas #2 by Charlaine Harris

From the BLURB:

There is no such thing as bad publicity, except in Midnight, Texas, where the residents like to keep to themselves. Even in a town full of secretive people, Olivia Charity is an enigma. She lives with the vampire Lemuel, but no one knows what she does; they only know that she’s beautiful and dangerous.

Psychic Manfred Bernardo finds out just how dangerous when he goes on a working weekend to Dallas and sees Olivia there with a couple who are both found dead the next day. To make matters worse, one of Manfred’s regular—and very wealthy—clients dies during a reading.

Manfred returns from Dallas embroiled in scandal and hounded by the press. He turns to Olivia for help; somehow he knows that the mysterious Olivia can get things back to normal. As normal as things get in Midnight…

‘Day Shift’ is the second book in Charlaine Harris’s new urban fantasy series, ‘Midnight, Texas’ … which happens to be a sort of amalgamation of all her other series, featuring various secondary characters from those books.

Last year I was so thrilled with Harris’s new series, and counted ‘Midnight, Crossroad’ as one of my favourite books of 2014. This new series features Manfred Bernardo from Harris’s ‘Harper Connelly’ series, Bobo Winthrop from ‘Lily Bard’, a character called Fiji Cavanaugh has a relative who is a Bon Temps sheriff, the detective Arthur from ‘Aurora Teagarden’ pops up … and in ‘Day Shift’ we catch up with a few more minor and secondary characters from Sookie Stackhouse’s world.

Basically, Midnight is a one traffic light town with a whole lot of weird and wonderful residents who all apparently occupy Charlaine Harris’s one-in-the-same universe for all her series. I loved the concept, and adored ‘Midnight Crossroad’, particularly because Bobo from ‘Lily Bard’ was perhaps the one character of Harris’s that I most wanted a happy ending for, and in this new series we get to see what became of him and a few other wayward folk from her various series.

Yes, there’s mystery and murder – what Charlaine Harris writes best – but this series felt very much character driven, since the author has collected the most beloved and missed folk from her various series. So I was really disheartened to get to the end of ‘Day Shift’ feeling like I’d been short-changed on the character side of things with this second book.

What I loved most from ‘Midnight Crossroad’ was the unrequited love affair between across-the-road neighbours Fiji and Bobo, and the way Harris was teasing out Fiji’s crush on her best friend. I also liked the hint of romance between Manfred and a young woman called Creek, whose family was in turmoil by the end of ‘Crossroad’. Unfortunately in ‘Day Shift’ Fiji and Bobo are the two characters with the least amount of page-time, and Creek isn’t mentioned once in the whole book. This second instalment is concentrated on a murder-mystery with Manfred at the centre, and providing backstory for Midnight resident Olivia and her vampire lover, Lemuel. Character Joe and Chuy also get plenty of baffling page-time, as does the Rev and a new young resident (with links to Bon Temps).

She opened the basket and, and out jumped Mr. Snuggly. Mr. Snuggly immediately went to the boy and stood at his feet, looking up. The boy had dark brown hair, long and tangled. He wore denim shorts and a Walking Dead T-shirt, which was an unusual choice for a child his apparent age. But what was that? 

“Hail, little brother,” said Mr. Snuggly in his small shrill voice. 

With a movement too quick to track, the boy was on his knees in front of the cat, peering into his face. Suddenly, the boy smiled. It was bewitching. He looked up at Fiji, and Olivia could see that his eyes were pansy purple. 

“Okay, I’m in love,” Fiji said cheerfully.

I just couldn’t believe that after setting up Fiji and Bobo with such interesting characterisation in ‘Midnight Crossroad’, Harris would just erase them from this second instalment … I’m really quite gobsmacked, to be honest. I know Harris has set a hard task for herself by making this a multiple-character focused story, as opposed to a Sookie Stakchouse/Aurora Teagarden/Lily Bard/Harper Connelly single-focus hero series. But she balanced the focus between Fiji, Bobo and Manfred really well against the mystery of other Midnight characters like Lemuel, Olivia and Rev. In ‘Day Shift’ all that built-up intrigue surrounding Olivia especially is just thrown out the window, and characters like Fiji and Bobo really do suffer.

Even increased focus on Manfred felt hollow when there’s absolutely no mention of young woman Creek, who was set up as a sort of romantic mystery for him in ‘Crossroad’. In fact, the whole of ‘Day Shift’ felt like it lacked heart – though Lemuel and Olivia have a tender if bizarre romance, they lack the heart and heat of Fiji’s unrequited love for Bobo or Manfred’s forbidden lusting after Creek. It’s a sad fact but in this series that’s meant to be very character-driven, without those deeper relationships and feelings between the characters it feels very much like something is hollow and missing.

To be honest, I was so frustrated with the lack of tangible connection in this book that the mystery also held less interest and gravitas as a result. The only thing I liked in this book were the two Bon Temps characters – one of whom I’ve always loved and wanted some reassurance that good things happened to them after the conclusion of ‘Sookie Stackhouse’.

Al in all this was a really disappointing second instalment after the pure enjoyment that was first book ‘Midnight Crossroad’. I hope in the third book ‘Night Shift’, coming 2016, Fiji and Bobo return for more page-time and there can be some acknowledgment of the romantic relationships that Harris did such a good job of establishing in the first book.

1.5/5

'Midnight Crossroad' Midnight Texas #1 by Charlaine Harris

From the BLURB:

Welcome to Midnight, Texas, a town with many boarded-up windows and few full-time inhabitants, located at the crossing of Witch Light Road and Davy Road. It’s a pretty standard dried-up western town.

There s a pawnshop (someone lives in the basement and is seen only at night). There’s a diner (people who are just passing through tend not to linger). And there s new resident Manfred Bernardo, who thinks he’s found the perfect place to work in private (and who has secrets of his own).

Stop at the one traffic light in town, and everything looks normal. Stay awhile, and learn the truth...

*** I try not to give ‘Harper Connelly’ or ‘Lily Bard’spoilers away – but I do have to mention how it is that two characters from those series are able to migrate into this new Charlaine Harris universe, so if you intend to read those books and don’t want to be in the least bit spoiled – STOP READING! *** 

Manfred Bernardo – 22-year-old phone and online psychic – has just packed up and moved his entire life to Midnight, Texas. One stoplight town with a pawnshop, resident witch and more secrets than Manfred ever bargained for.

Bobo Winthrop runs the pawnshop, which he bought from the now basement resident, Lemuel (who only comes out at night) a couple of years ago. Originally from Shakespeare, Arkansas Bobo left his home behind after his family’s dirty laundry kept catching up with him … but even in the sleepy town of Midnight, Bobo has trouble hot on his heels. His girlfriend, Aubrey, up and left him one night and he hasn’t heard boo from her since. Strange men keep looking for him and he has taken more than one beating since moving to this little town where he keeps being found by the wrong people.

Across the road from Bobo is Fiji (“Feegee”) Cavanaugh and her cat, Mr Snuggly. In her thirties and curvalicious, Fiji is a proud witch and hopelessly in love with her good friend, Bobo. She has no love lost for the missing Aubrey, but it just about kills her to see Bobo still so depressed over her leaving even after all these months.

Other residents in Midnight include loved-up couples Teacher and Madonna, Joe and Chuy, reclusive gas n’ go owners the Lovell family (consisting of father Shawn, brother Connor and 18-year-old Creek, who instantly catches Manfred’s eye) then there’s the Rev who runs the non-denominational chapel and pet cemetery (you don’t want to see him when he’s angry) sickly pale Lemuel and constant traveller, the beautiful Olivia.

The second Manfred enters into this close-knit community, secrets start unearthing and he finds himself caught up in the town’s secrets – the biggest one being murder.

‘Midnight Crossroad’ is the first book in a new cozy mystery series by Charlaine Harris, called ‘Midnight, Texas’.

This is the be all and end all new series for Charlaine Harris fans (and by “fans” I do mean people who are familiar with more than just her ‘Sookie Stackhouse/Southern Vampire’ HBO-adapted series). The pivoting points of Harris’s new ‘Midnight, Texas’ series are two characters from her old (long finished) series ‘Lily Bard’ and ‘Harper Connelly’. 

I’ve read this being touted as the Manfred spin-off, but in my eyes he’s only one-half of the double-act of this new (long-awaited!) series. Manfred Bernardo is, for those who don’t know, the lovable pierced psychic who appeared as a secondary character in Harris’s ‘Harper Connelly’ cozy mystery-paranormal series. The other secondary character who has been upgraded to protagonist is Bobo Winthrop, golden boy of Shakespeare – the town of Harris’s ‘Lily Bard’ series. What these two characters have in common is that they were fan-favourites, and nice guys who finished last. Both Manfred and Bobo were in the unique positions of being ideal romantic candidates for the heroines in their respective series, but lucked out in the love department due to events and better happily-ever-afters that were out of their control. 

Manfred and Harper were equally matched in psychic ability and definitely shared some chemistry – but he lucked out when Harris decided to give Harper a far more controversial (and, let’s face it – interesting!) romance. 

The first website he visited was the one dedicated to “Bernardo, Psychic and Seer.” His publicity picture was half of the home page. He was wearing all black, naturally, and he was standing in the middle of a field with lightning coming out of his fingers. (Every time he admired the Photoshopped bolts, he thought of his lightning-struck friend, Harper.) 

Bobo was the sweet, affable teen-Titan of his hometown and hopelessly in love with his cleaning lady/sparring partner, Lily Bard. They shared plenty of sexual chemistry, but he was just too young (a teenager for most of the ‘Lily Bard’ series) and Lily’s personal experiences meant he was no match for the man she ended up settling with, who likewise shared a dark past and hopes for a better future with her. That being said; both Manfred and Bobo amassed a huge fan-following amongst Harris’s readers – fifth and final book in the ‘Lily Bard’ series was released in 2001, and right up until ‘Midnight, Texas’ was announced she was still fielding questions on her fan-forum about the possibility of Bobo making a guest-appearance in the ‘Sookie’ series, or getting his own spin-off. And now we have one – made even better because it’s a glorious mash-up of ‘Harper Connelly’, ‘Lily Bard’ and with a bit of the Sookie-verse thrown in (hint: vampires are kinda out of the coffin in this universe too). 

“I’ll tell you something weird. Football and karate saved me. Football, because we were all one team and we were all colors.” 

“Karate?” Fiji said. “Really?” 

Bobo actually laughed. “It was great. My sensei was this amazing Asian guy who could kick major butt before breakfast, and one of my favourite class buddies was a black guy named Raphael Roundtree. And a white woman named Lily Bard. She could knock me down with her little finger. My grandfather revered women – as long as they were dependent and decorative.” 

I was reading ‘Midnight Crossroad’ as someone who has long listed ‘Lily Bard’ as my all-time favourite Charlaine Harris series, followed closely by ‘Aurora Teagarden’, ‘Harper Connelly’ and then the one that made her a literary sensation, ‘Southern Vampire’. I got perverse enjoyment out of reading these characters I fell in love with in two different universes, coming together for a fresh start. I don’t know how readers who are only familiar with Harris’s Sookie-verse will go with ‘Midnight, Texas’ – she writes enough backstory and a tight enough whodunit that anyone will get enjoyment from the story itself – but I do hope people who aren’t familiar with Harris’s backlist will be moved to read her original (and best) cozy mystery series’ because they are well worth it. 

‘Midnight Crossroad’ is quite a departure for Harris too, regardless that these characters are familiar. She’s writing her first multiple-POV series (third-person narration, but following the characters of Manfred, Bobo and Fiji in alternating chapters) and with two male protagonists when she’s previously only written female heroines. And even though this is, in my mind at least, the Manfred and Bobo show, the storyline of ‘Midnight Crossroad’ is leaning more heavily Bobo’s way. The plot-arc relates to events that happened to him in ‘Shakespeare’s Champion’, second book in the ‘Lily Bard’ series. And the better-established romance in this first book is the one-sided crush Fiji has on Bobo, whereas Manfred’s appreciation of beautiful teen resident, Creek, is just surface-scratching at this point.

Fiji was my favourite character in this book (shocking, since I’m someone who has been pining for more Bobo since 2001!) maybe it’s the curse of Harris’s lovelorn characters, but I like her underdogs and Fiji is charming in her loyalty, witchiness and one-sided crushing. 

Midnight is definitely a town with enough secrets and intriguing residents to fill a (long-awaited!) new series from Charlaine Harris. Reading this as someone who is a bigger fan of her backlist than HBO-adapted Sookie, ‘Midnight, Texas’ feels like a hark back to the cozy mysteries she excelled at writing early on – the cherries on top are Manfred and Bobo, fan-favourites who are being given a chance to shine all on their own. A favourite book of 2014, for sure.

5/5