DAY SHIFT by Charlaine Harris – Review

Day Shift (Midnight, Texas #2) by Charlaine Harris
Genre: Adult urban fantasy
Publisher: Ace
Release date: May 2015
Source: ARC from publisher
Pages: 320

The nitty-gritty: Even though it’s thin on plot, Day Shift is full of heart, small town secrets, quirky townsfolk and plenty of supernatural beasts.

“The boy is growing at twenty times the normal speed,” he said. “An old hoodlum just popped in to promise us he’d keep silent in return for scones. Mr. Snuggly has uncovered bad doings at the hotel. And I still need to clear my name of these bogus theft charges, which draw attention to Midnight, and therefore to all this other shit that should remain secret.”

“That’s a good summary,” Fiji said brightly.

Before I started blogging, I read quite a few of Charlaine Harris’ Sookie Stackhouse books. I think I finally gave up after the first five or six, because they just got sillier and sillier, and by that time I was deep into True Blood which was NOTHING like the books. So it was with some hesitation that I picked up the second book in Harris’ new paranormal series. Yes, I’ve done it again. I have not read Midnight Crossroad, but I did get a copy of Day Shift in my Ace Roc Stars package so I decided to dive right in. Reading a Charlaine Harris book is like wrapping yourself in a warm blanket. She writes as if she’s having a chat with her best friends, and you feel lucky because you’re one of them.

There is a downside to this style of writing, however. Her casual approach to storytelling gives the plot a meandering quality, and at times I felt as if nothing was really happening in this book. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed Day Shift, but if you’re looking for heavy action and plot, you won’t find it here. Day Shift is almost more of a character study, and the plot felt like an afterthought. But that’s where Harris shines the brightest—developing her characters and their relationships with each other. This book is filled with people I’d love to get to know better, and if her past series are anything to go by, I expect there will be many more Midnight, Texas books before she’s finished. That will give readers the opportunity to spend more time with Manfred and Joe and Chuy and Olivia and Fiji, and that’s a great thing.

A couple of different mysteries are going on in this story. First of all, an old hotel that’s been shut down for years is suddenly reopening, a fact that is making the residents of Midnight very nervous. And then scandal comes to Midnight, when one of Manfred’s clients (he’s a psychic) dies while he’s giving her a reading. And in the same Dallas hotel where Manfred was staying, a husband and wife are found dead in Olivia’s hotel room (Olivia is also from Midnight, and has also gone to Dallas for the weekend “on business”). When Manfred suddenly finds himself not only a murder suspect, but accused of stealing his dead client’s jewelry, the stage is set for all sorts of hijinks.

Even though I missed some of the character development from Midnight Crossroad, I quickly found myself embroiled in the day-to-day lives of the strange residents of Midnight, Texas. This is truly an ensemble cast, since Harris shifts her point of view around to every character. My favorite was probably Olivia, a mysterious woman who is dating a vampire named Lemuel. Olivia has some sort of shady occupation that is never explained, and even by the end of the book we still don’t know what she’s up to. I thought it was odd that Lemuel isn’t in the story at all, although Olivia does receive a text message or two from him. Maybe someone who’s read Midnight Crossroad can tell me if he plays a bigger part in that book. He’s off traveling the country, looking for some old books, and I’m curious to “meet” him in the next installment.

Some of the characters are given very little page time, and it felt as if they were simply thrown in for background noise. I’m wondering if they had bigger roles in the first book, so it’s probably no fault of the author’s that I didn’t connect with them. I was tickled to see Sookie Stackhouse’s name come up in the conversation, when a character from Bon Temps joins the action!

And speaking of Bon Temps, I did miss the steamy, sultry ambiance of Louisiana from the Sookie Stackhouse series. Let’s face it: Midnight, Texas is nothing but desert. You can practically feel the hot wind on your face and see the tumbleweeds rolling across the street. And as for the wonderfully steamy relationship between Sookie and Vampire Bill, there isn’t much of that to be found in Day Shift—yet. I’m hoping for more heat in future books.

But despite some of my issues with the slow pace and uninspiring plot, reading Day Shift made me smile. Sometimes ridiculous, sometimes laugh-out-loud funny, but always heartwarming, this is one series I’ll be keeping my eye on.

Big thanks to the publisher for supplying a review copy. Quote was taken from an uncorrected proof and may differ in the final book.

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