Midnight Crossroad (A Novel of Midnight, Texas)
I hoped that a new series was what Charlaine Harris needed to get her author mojo back. Spin-off series is probably more accurate, as Manfred from the Harper Connelly series is the major character here.
Nope. First, there is such a thing as too descriptive. The first 5% or so (the prologue, not even chapter one) nearly bored me so much that I was ready to return it to the library without making it to the first chapter. But that wouldn’t be fair, the story hadn’t begun. Everything was all this building looks like this, this person lives here, this store has a candy dish on the counter, etc. I skimmed and couldn’t possibly remember where everything was two minutes later because I simply didn’t care.
Also, maybe it’s just me, but it feels like race is handled awkwardly:
“Perhaps her ancestors were from Somalia, because she is tall, there is a reddish cast to her brown skin, and her nose is thin and high bridged” <— that sounds more like an author plotting a character sheet (It doesn’t seem natural in the story. How often do you look at someone and say “Well she’s got a thin nose and some red in her skin, I bet she’s got some Somalians in her family tree").
And
“Like Chuy, he’s of Hispanic origin, but otherwise the two men are nothing alike.” <- after this it goes on to explain the physical differences. Like it had to prepare us for hey this guy is Hispanic too but sometimes people who are Hispanic look different from one another!
The gay couple is dealt with equally awkwardly: "After five minutes, Manfred forgot that Joe and Chuy were men who had sex with each other." That came right after being shocked that men could arrange a home nicely but before the phew they can cook. Oh, also Manfred had already known and spent time with the couple, it wasn’t as though they had just sprung that they are gay on him at that dinner.
Still I pushed through that and still, nope. There's a cast of characters with names like "Bobo", "Fiji", "Creek", and "Teacher". There's the paranormal aspect (witches, psychics, and vampires). And that is all there is. Well, okay, there’s an unsolved murder mystery and a bunch of extremists. But that is all handled so awkwardly. None of it seems possible, but if it were possible, the dialog and the way that it is pushed to the side in such a small town, well… it just doesn’t work.
There is a very unique cat, with personality, even it couldn’t save this story. No character development beyond this one is young, this one is gay, this one is a witch. BORING. There’s supposed to be some romantic interests but none of that feels natural.
I loved Charlaine Harris during the early Southern Vampire books and through Harper Connelly, but I think it’s time we went our separate ways. Shame, she used to tell a decent story.
