Book Review: Midnight Crossroad

Title: Midnight Crossroad
Author: Charlaine Harris
Source: Library

Goodreads Summary:

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...


My thoughts:

Let me start by saying this is the first Charlaine Harris book I have picked up since abandoning the Southern Vampire series about halfway through. So, when I picked up this book I wasn't sure what to expect. Would I get more crazy Sookie-type storylines? Would it be like the beginning of the Southern Vampire series, which I actually liked? What I got was not all that bad.

I have only read one book in the Harper Connelly and one book in the Lily Bard series, but I am thinking that this book series is more in line with those, especially as one of the characters, Manfred,  is actually friends with both Harper and Lily. This book is set in the small town of Midnight, Texas, a town so small they have only one stoplight.  The town may be small, but it more than makes up for that in its depth of characters that live there. There is the handsome Bobo, who owns a small pawnshop; Fiji, the local woo-woo lady who runs a magick shop in her living room, Mr. Snuggly, Olivia, Lemuel, the Rev, and the Lovell family who runs the Gas and Go.

This town is mysterious and quiet. No one asks questions, or answers them about the past. They are friendly and close knit with each other but skeptical of strangers. I have always been fascinated with small towns as they are portrayed in books and on tv. I think of Stars Hollow, Walnut Grove, Thalia, TX - actually more than I can list here. They seem wholesome, quirky, fun. Yet lurking down below there are secrets, maybe not in those small towns, but in some. Reading this book I was reminded of the eerie small towns I have stopped in, that uncomfortable feeling you get for no reason at all. That is the feeling of this town.

I thought the characters were interesting in this story, but the point of view skipped around so much, I didn't feel that I got to spend quality time with any of them. Maybe that was on purpose, fitting in with how the town works? This book was also slow, slow, slow. It plodded along, but not...plotted. (sorry, couldn't help myself!) I think it seemed like an incomplete story. But it wasn't a bad book per se. I am curious enough about it to want to read the next in the trilogy. I'm willing to give it another go.

Deadlocked - Review

Title: Deadlocked
Author: Charlaine Harris
Source: Barnes and Noble

Goodreads Summary:

With Felipe de Castro, the Vampire King of Louisiana (and Arkansas and Nevada), in town, it’s the worst possible time for a body to show up in Eric Northman’s front yard—especially the body of a woman whose blood he just drank.
Now, it’s up to Sookie and Bill, the official Area Five investigator, to solve the murder. Sookie thinks that, at least this time, the dead girl’s fate has nothing to do with her. But she is wrong. She has an enemy, one far more devious than she would ever suspect, who’s out to make Sookie’s world come crashing down.

My thoughts:

I agree these books are getting a little old and drawn out.  Kind of like the Stephanie Plum series.  But, I find there is something comforting and easy about reading them.  Like an entertaining commercial for your brain, a palette cleanser of sorts.   Unfortunately, although like slipping into an old pair of jeans, this is just ho hum  and didn't really make you feel that good.  

This book had more of the same stuff - Sookie just trying to deal with the supernaturals around her, while living her normal Louisiana life.  The supernaturals are the usual suspects - vampires, werewolves, fairies.  This time Eric is accused of murder and the police are investigating the death of a young woman who died in his front yard.  Sookie and Bill are on the case, to figure out what happened.  I thought the mystery was actually pretty interesting, and I didn't figure it out before the reader is supposed to.  However, it is Sookie's relationships with everyone that gets on my nerves.  

Her brother is all happy-wappy and getting married; this bothers me because I like stupid, shallow Jason for some reason.  I didn't expect him to make such a big change.  Alcide was my favorite for a while, and I always rooted for him and Sookie to get together, but Harris has made him into a really annoying character. Sam is clueless and they almost make fun of his living in a trailer in this book, Tara is having babies, Bill is still mooning over Sookie, and Eric seems ambivalent to Sookie.  Pam is the only character who still seems like herself.  I do think characters need to grow and change (example: Stephanie Plum has NOT grown) but I don't really like the direction Harris went.  These characters seem like watered down versions of themselves.  

I kind of liked the end.  It seemed Harris was cleaning house.  It also is apparent that she is setting Sookie up for a romance with Sam.  I am hoping the next book is the last in the series; and I know I will read it, if just for closure on this series.  I hate when things  end without conclusions.  

So, if you can walk away now from Sookie, I would say walk away.  If you can't, and have to read them, like me, don't expect too much.