Midnight Crossroad (Midnight, Texas, #1)

by Charlaine Harris

"FIRST IN A NEW TRILOGY From Charlaine Harris, the bestselling author who created Sookie Stackhouse and her world of Bon Temps, Louisiana, comes a darker locale-populated by more strangers than friends. But then, that's how the locals prefer it. 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... "--

• ISBN10: 0425263150
• ISBN13: 9780425263150
• Publish Date: 6 May 2014 (first published 1 May 2014)
• Publish Status: Remaindered
• Publish Country: US
• Publisher: Penguin Putnam Inc
• Imprint: Ace Books
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 305
• Language: English

Reviews

[Quirky Cat]

Three and a half stars.

Fans of Charlaine Harris’ Sookie Stackhouse series will be shocked by how different it is from her Midnight Texas series. I think those that go into one expecting something more like the other will find themselves disappointed. In fact, considering Midnight Texas released after the Sookie series, I suspect that’s the reason why the rating is lower than one would expect (especially considering it also got a TV series).
Midnight Crossroad is an interesting blend of genres; its one part mystery and one part fantasy. Some may be disappointed by the lack of heavy fantasy elements in this series. Others will be pleased about the subtlety of the mixture. It really all depends on your personal preference.



When I first started reading Midnight Crossroad I naturally assumed that Manfred was the main character. Why you ask? Mainly because it was his perspective we were seeing from. Even when the perspectives started shifting I found myself thinking he was still the main character. I think it’s because anytime we had to learn something about the town of Midnight or its people, we learned it through Manfred (being the newcomer, he was the one that had to ask questions or make new observations, allowing us to learn along with him).
Midnight is a shocking small town – something that most of us will probably have trouble imagining, let alone understanding. The residents total less than fifty in all likelihood. Even less than that are actually named characters. It seems like for a small town (can you even call it a town?) it gets pretty decent foot traffic, though I’m not sure how they’re discovered so readily.
Despite the town’s small size it sure is full of eccentricities and secrets. Manfred is a psychic, though mostly he sticks to online (fake) readings for cash, he’s also the newest member to the town. I’m not yet sure why he moved to Midnight, but I’m sure there’s a good reason for it; one that will likely prove that he fits in with the people of Midnight. As for the rest of the townspeople? We have a witch, a vampire, a special cat (I’ll let you find out why on your own), and I’m sure more. I secretly suspect one or two of the characters may be an angel-like creature, or something winged. I haven’t fully decided yet. Maybe I’ll have figured that one out by the end of the next book.
Midnight Crossroad had a pretty decent plot (it’s a mystery of sorts, as mentioned earlier), but it mostly felt like it was all building up to something else. Almost like the plot was serving the purpose of helping us get to know the town (and the extent of its secrets) before something even bigger happened. I think that feeling is actually the reason I enjoyed this book as much as I did. There was this constant sense of something over the horizon, while at the same time not causing my anxiety or dread. Just curiosity. It kept me reading right up until the end, and makes me grateful I can just go ahead and other the next book now, rather than waiting.


For more reviews, check out Quirky Cat's Fat Stacks

[kimbacaffeinate]

I loved the first season of Midnight, Texas on NBC and although I own and have not read the Sookie series I decided to dive in and begin the Midnight, Texas trilogy. Midnight Crossroad is very much like the television show with some slight changes mostly in casting. In retrospect, I am almost glad I watched the first season before beginning.

Trying to look at this from the perspective of someone just reading the book who has NOT watched the television show my gut feeling tells me it may be a tad confusing. You know Midnight, Texas is different, but it takes a while before you really know who the key players are or rather WHAT they are. Aside from a few minor physical changes,  a missing RV and grandma it looks like the television series follows the book(s) pretty closely. Well, at least season one and book one.

I love the premise of Midnight. A small town with only one-stop light where the veil is thin between the dead and the living, a place that draws those who are different. Here we have all types of supernatural creatures living side by side along with humans who are hiding or different, like a certain kickass female. Manfred Bernardo a psychic has just moved in and through him, we learn about the town and its inhabitants. I am hoping that what we learned about him on the television show is reflected in the next book. We get a lot of different POVs and having watched the show, it made navigating them easier.

One of the things I loved is that Harris combines urban fantasy with mystery. Since these are two of my favorite genres, it stands to reason that together they would rock. We have a murder, but in the book, we also have the mystery of everyone's secret and why Manfred suddenly relocated to Midnight. While this made things interesting and I am sure it will pay off, it also kept me from becoming attached to any of the residents. (This is where the tv show worked better) This review was originally posted at Caffeinated Reviewer

[jesstheaudiobookworm]

That was lovely. Onto the next.

[EBookObsessed]

A lot of potential, but this first novel didn’t have too much paranormal for a paranormal story.

Charlaine Harris’s Midnight, Texas gave me flashbacks of reading old Stephen King Castle Rock stories. You knew there was something off about the place, but you weren’t exactly sure what was happening. It was a wonderful set up and I can see the potential. But in this first story, it just didn’t live up to that potential which was so frustrating.

We are introduced to the Town through the eyes of the newest inhabitant Manfred Bernardo, who is just moving into the cottage next to the Pawn Shop owned by Bobo. As Manfred gets to know his new neighbors and the Town of Midnight, we get to know them as well.

The story has a great flow to and whole point of learning the Town bit by bit helps draw out the story in a very natural development.

What bothered me about the story was simply that some of the inhabitants of Midnight, and we will probably eventually learn that all of the inhabitants of Midnight, have special abilities but they were barely touched upon. I mean to such a degree that I would say why bother? It could have simply been an interesting story about an odd own and its quirky citizens so why make them supernatural if that is barely touched upon.

For example, the newest arrival, Manfred, is a psychic. While he has several online sites for which he charges money for and uses psychology rather than his true ability to give readings, we only see him use his real ability once or twice.

His neighbor, Fiji Cavanaugh, is a witch. She runs a little shop out of her house which gives off more of a wicca vibe and she teaches wicca-type classes, but she is a true witch from a family of witches. Again, we only see her do one or two “spells.” We don’t see Fiji do any impressive witchery.

The only other character we are certain has paranormal abilities is Lemuel Bridger. Lemuel is a vampire and lives in the apartment under the pawn shop and he works nights, for obvious reasons. Everyone knows that he is a vampire, but this vampire takes nutrition in the form of either blood or energy. We never see him feed on anyone’s blood, but he does borrow a cup of energy from his new neighbor Manfred. I don’t believe that vampires are out of the coffin in this series, unlike her Sookie Stackhouse series, since there was only an inference that the sheriff shouldn’t go trying to wake up Lemuel for questionings since Lemuel is the night clerk and doesn’t come out during the day, not “Lemuel is a vampire” and the Sheriff would know he was not available during the day to question. It also seems that all “others” keep out of sight during the day since they only come to the Pawn shop at night to transact business with Lemuel, not Bobo, the owner.

The other characters introduced, but not with any paranormal indication, are Olivia, who conducts unknown business and is always going out of town. She seems a little shady and is very flexible with issues such a killing or disposal of bodies. Is she a spy? An assassin? A succubus? We don’t know yet if she is anything supernatural at all.

Bobo Winthrop, the owner of the Pawn Shop and Manfred’s landlord. We know that Fiji has a big crush on Bobo, but recently Bobo’s girlfriend, Aubrey, left him and she keeps her crush secret. The big mystery of the story is that Bobo’s girlfriend’s body is found, so obviously she didn’t just abandon him as he thought, but the question is who killed her and why.

The Rev is a very big question mark. He runs a tiny, non-denominational church which has an attached pet cemetery, but The Rev is very quiet and keeps to himself for most of the story.

The other characters are a gay couple, Joe and Chewy and their little pekingese, who run an antique shop/nail salon; Madonna who runs the diner, and her husband, Teacher and their baby; and the odd family that runs the local Gas ‘N Go, Shawn Lovell and his daughter, Creek and son, Connor.

No one else but Lemuel, Manfred or Fiji are introduced as anything but normal, human inhabitants of an odd, empty town of Midnight. The question is will that change in the other two stories which have been released? I don’t know, but I will find out.

This series has been made into a TV series which will be starting soon on NBC called Midnight, Texas. I watched the trailer after I had started the story so that I could picture the characters in my head better. I am certainly going to give it a try. The only thing that threw me off was Lemuel is played by Peter Mensah. In the book, they keep talking about how pale, pale, pale Lemuel is. Peter Mensah is not pale at all and as I pictured Peter as Lemuel, the comments about pale Lemuel no longer fit.

I believe the series begins in May and I am going to try to get to the other two books before that begins. If NBC follows what HBO did to the Sookie Stackhouse series, they will deviate from books with their own plots. You can see from the trailer, they are going to make full use of the paranormal abilities for TV.

[Eve1972]

This was just an OK read, it was a bit to slow for my liking.

[lizarodz]

Review Soon

[celinenyx]

The last few books I read by Charlaine Harris have been subpar. The final books in the Sookie Stackhouse series showed the author losing her stride. At least in this new series featuring a new cast of characters, Ms Harris rediscovered her enthusiasm for writing, even though it's not quite yet of the standard of some of her other works.

Manfred Bernardo, a character we know from the Harper Connelly series, is now starring in his own series. Manfred moves to Midnight, a tiny town in the middle of nowhere in Texas. Not a single one of its inhabitants asks him why he moved there - it seems like everyone living in Midnight has something to hide.

Midnight Crossing sees the return of one of Ms Harris' staples: the small southern town. Midnight is almost a character in itself. A lot of time is spent outlining its quirky inhabitants - and they are quirky. Names of the Midnightians include Fiji, Bobo, Creek, and Lamuel. I've honestly never met any people named this strangely, but that might just be because I've never visited any small Texas towns.

I'm not completely sure in what genre Midnight Crossing is supposed to fall. Although there is a mystery at the heart of the book, it takes a very long time to develop, and there is very little actual sleuthing or piecing together of clues going on. The mystery almost seems to resolve itself. The people of Midnight go through the motions, and at one point an answer presents itself. This didn't necessarily bother me, but it would disappoint anyone looking for a good mystery to get immersed into.

This isn't so much Manfred's book as it is a book for all of Midnight. He isn't the shining star in the story - for me Fiji, the local witch, is. We spend quite some time in the heads of other Midnight residents besides Manfred. There is a slight touch of the paranormal to Midnight Crossing, but there is none of the paranormal world building we saw in the Sookie Stackhouse series. Manfred's psychic powers only manifest themselves once, when he receives a vision that is hardly relevant to the plot. I really wish we could see more of his powers, because they always intrigued me when he was still just playing second fiddle in a different series.

Though Ms Harris largely seems to have found her inner muse again, her writing is still slightly awkward. Armed with conventional wisdoms and cringe-worthy frankness, she writes gems such as:

After five minutes, Manfred forgot that Joe and Chuy were men who had sex with each other. Instead, he was able to revel in the happy discovery that Chuy was a very good cook and that Joe kept a stock of excellent beer in his refrigerator.

In my opinion that first sentence should have never made its way into print. If the author can stay away from these less-than-stellar pieces of wisdom, Midnight Crossroad is quite enjoyable.

[wyvernfriend]

Not a bad read, combines a cosy mystery with urban fantasy. You don't meet the murder victim so she's a bit depersonalised. Manfred Bernardo moves to Midnight, Texas and finds that the surface appearance isn't what is in the country, the 24 hour pawn shop is interesting.

When a picnic leads to a body being discovered, the body of a missing woman, things get interesting.

It wasn't a bad read, it just didn't really hold my interest.

[Rinn]

Also posted on my book blog, Rinn Reads. I received this book for free from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Previously on the blog, I’ve discussed Charlaine Harris’ Sookie Stackhouse Novels quite a bit. I’ve recommended books for fans of the TV show adaptation, written a guide to the series for Horror October, discussed representations of vampires in media and chatted about my thoughts on the series. The series may have dragged a little towards the end in my opinion, but I carried on reading because I had to know what happened to Sookie and co – and overall it’s a series that I’ll always cherish, for its wonderfully dark sense of humour and great cast of characters. So imagine my delight when I discovered that Charlaine was working on another series – one that promises to bring together characters from ALL of her previous series! And thanks to both Netgalley and the publisher, Gollancz, I’ve had the chance to read the first book.

The first chapter is written in a rather unusual style, introducing the reader to the small town (or rather hamlet) of Midnight, Texas. Although it was quite a nice way to set up the tiny community and its residents, there was just too much information to take in at once and some of it felt totally unnecessary – for example, about the decoration in Fiji’s house and garden. However, what the first chapter did give me was a picture of a close-knit community, that is perhaps hiding something a lot bigger and rather out of the ordinary. The idea of a small country town with just a few inhabitants, but ALL of them with something mysterious or secrets they want to keep hidden is a pretty engrossing one!

Although the story is told from several third person POVs, I suppose Manfred would be considered the main character. Everything begins when he moves into town, and the reader often sees the world through his eyes: like Manfred, they are also new to Midnight. I didn’t much like Manfred. He is an internet and telephone psychic, and whilst he genuinely has some ability (apparently, not that he has really used it yet) he actually admits that a lot of what he does is fictitious and uses psychological manipulation. He just seemed completely fraudulent to me, and then the fact that he thinks he can go at scoff at Fiji for being a witch seemed rather… laughable. He also develops a bit of fixation on one of the young girls in the town by the name of Creek, which was just creepy. Although he is revealed to be only twenty-two to her eighteen/nineteen (I originally assumed he was early to mid thirties), the way he thinks about this girl he barely knows is, for want of a better word, quite frankly rather ‘stalkerish’.

My favourite characters were Fiji, a witch who runs a shop and various classes on magic from her home, and her cat, Mr. Snuggly. Mr. Snuggly was actually one of the most interesting characters, in my opinion… I’d like to learn more about the Reverend, who is DEFINITELY hiding something and I have a suspicion as to what it might be, but looks like I’ll have to keep reading the series to confirm my theory.

As I mentioned at the beginning, Midnight Crossroad is sort of an amalgamation of all of Charlaine Harris’ previous novels, including characters from previous books, implying that they are in fact all set in the same universe. Despite the presence of a vampire, and the reference to True Blood (as ‘that synthetic stuff’) and various other supernatural entities, it felt like a very different world. Not that it’s a bad thing. The vampire in the story, Lemuel, is more accepted by his fellow citizens than many of the vampires of Bon Temps and Shreveport – although Midnight has a much, much smaller and apparently less prejudiced community. No-one seems to bat an eyelid at a vampire in their midst, and even when some more surprises come later on, everyone takes them fairly calmly. Which just goes to show that life in Midnight is not exactly ‘normal’… I found myself waiting for familiar characters from the Sookie Stackhouse Novels, but unfortunately none have appeared so far!

Although I did enjoy the book, I had a couple of criticisms. For the first third of the story, until Midnight’s residents made a shocking discovery, and the surprising twist that comes with it, it felt a bit dry. It wasn’t until that moment that I felt the book really picked up. I also have to question the logic of the citizens of Midnight. One character’s girlfriend ups and leaves two months prior to the beginning of the story. Without a single possession. And he ASSUMES that she’s just left him because she doesn’t love him, has met someone else etc – why would she go without a single thing? Why would you not report her as missing sooner? If someone you love DISAPPEARS without taking a single thing with them, not their purse, phone, passport etc, why would you assume it’s because they don’t care? The other problem I had with the book was the conclusion: Midnight’s residents deal with their ‘villain’ in a very illogical and stupid way, pretty much putting themselves at risk.

In conclusion, whilst I enjoyed Midnight Crossroad it didn’t feel like anything special. The conclusion was shocking, but for everything supernatural about Midnight it just seemed so… normal. However, if you’re a fan of Charlaine’s previous work, I’d recommend giving it a try.

[stressedrach]

I was expecting good things from Midnight Crossroad as I loved the Sookie Stackhouse books and the way Charlaine Harris managed to entwine the series into my mind so I was totally hooked.

Unfortunately I struggled with Midnight Crossroad. The characters were great, I got to like Manfred, Bobo, Fiji, Olivia, Lemuel and the other’s residents of Midnight. Everyone has a secret in Midnight and nobody tells much about their past or about themselves in general. I was eager to learn what the secrets were but the story seemed to be very slow and a little boring if I am honest.

It did not capture me like other books have done.

That said, I will definitely be picking up the next book in the series in the hope that book 2 gets more exciting.

I would give this book a 3.5 out of 5 rating.