Midnight Crossroads by Charlaine Harris

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...

Hey everyone, its Sarah and I'm back with another book review. Today's review is on the first novel in Charlaine Harris' new series, Texas Midnight, Midnight Crossroads.

When I first saw this book on the shelf I have to say that it was the cover was what really drew my attention to it. (I seem to be going through a phase where I have been buying books that have blue on the cover). After picking up the book and reading the back I couldn't help but buy this book, the story idea just made me want to open it and begin reading almost instantly but I controlled myself and waited until I got home.

When twenty two year old phone psychic Manfred Bernardo moves to Midnight, Texas, he is looking for a quiet place to go unnoticed. He isn't the only one though; everyone in Midnight seems to want the same thing. The citizens of Midnight are friendly and welcoming, but they seem to be frighteningly protective of their secrets. Manfred's landlord, Bobo Winthrop, runs a pawn shop with a very pale night owl name Lemuel who is having a sexual relationship with Olivia, who is beautiful as she is deadly. Across the way is a nail salon run by a gay couple, a diner owned by the only married couple in town, a petrol station called the Gas N Go staffed by an overprotective father and his two bored kids, there is also a church and a pet cemetery overseen by a decidedly creepy reverend who never speaks to anyone, and a magic shop which is run by a witch named Fiji and her observant cat.

As soon as I began to read this book I was enjoying it, it was something that I hadn't read in awhile and I enjoyed going into a book that you have no idea what is going to happen. I was interested to learn about the characters and how every character in this book is unique in their own way, all of them have interesting lives and personalities and even though it is a small town not everyone knows everyone's secrets.

I enjoyed how the story wasn't slow to start; it stuck to a good medium pace where you got to experience the many different characters thoughts and opinions on the things that they uncovered. One of my favourite characters in the book is a woman named Fiji who is a witch that runs a magic shop across the road from where Manfred lives. Fiji is a unique woman with a quirky personality that made me laugh many times while reading, and her strange and extremely observant cat only added to that humour. While she was my favourite, most of the other characters such as Bobo and Lemuel kept me interested in the story as I wanted to know what secrets they held and what would happen to them.

Unlike in Harris' other books like to Sookie Stackhouse series or properly named as the Southern Vampire series the characters were not over crowded with the pressure of relationships and sex so you got to see the characters grow in a way that the characters from the Sookie Stackhouse series did not. While their certainly are romantic feelings involved in the story, the relationships on which the characters act in this story come from a type relationship and/or friendship that is built on a king of trust and respect that only a friendship can provide. These relationships come through as the good people of Midnight are caught up in the uncontrollable circumstances of the book and they come together to fix the problems. These people are a family, plain and simple.

The one part in this book that I didn’t like was the prologue. When the book begins Harris begins to paint an extremely clear picture of the town of Midnight and what you can find there. There is so much detail that I would say that it is a bit overkill and there is a thing as too much showing. The one thing I love about Fiction writing is the fact that you are given the bases of what the places in novels look like and same with the characters, but in the end the finished image of the character in completed in the minds of us readers. While I find that many readers do like extreme amounts of detail, this seemed overwhelming. This did not stop me from reading though as I found this to novel to be amazing.

If you have read Charliane Harris before and you have loved her books then make sure you go and pick up this beginning of a new trilogy. Personally I cannot wait to for the sequel.

My overall rating for this book was 5 out of 5 stars and I hope you all enjoy it as much as I did.

Thank you for taking time to read this. I will see you next time.

Byyyeee.

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