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    Midnight Crossroad
    Midnight Crossroad
    Midnight Crossroad
    Audiobook9 hours

    Midnight Crossroad

    Written by Charlaine Harris

    Narrated by Susan Bennett

    3.5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    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...
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRecorded Books, Inc.
    Release dateMay 6, 2014
    ISBN9781490603711
    Midnight Crossroad
    Author

    Charlaine Harris

    Charlaine Harris is a New York Times bestselling author who has been writing for over thirty years. She was born and raised in the Mississippi River Delta area. She has written four series, and two stand-alone novels, in addition to numerous short stories, novellas, and graphic novels (cowritten with Christopher Golden). Her Sookie Stackhouse books have appeared in twenty-five different languages and on many bestseller lists. They’re also the basis of the HBO series True Blood. Harris now lives in Texas, and when she is not writing her own books, she reads omnivorously. Her house is full of rescue dogs.

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    Reviews for Midnight Crossroad

    3.5/5

    530 ratings65 reviews

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    • 4/5
      So we have Bobo from the Lily Bard series and Arthur Smith from the Aurora Tegarden series. That was fun.

      This book was a nice introduction to Midnight, Texas and the people that live there.
    • 3/5
      The narrator, Susan Bennett, added a lot to my enjoyment of this audiobook. It was a pleasure listening to her. As for the book itself, it was a cozy mystery with some paranormal elements. It took a little too long to come to the point.
    • 4/5
      Midnight Crossroad is a murder mystery involving a very small town and its close-knit, but everyone-has-a-secret community. Manfred Bernardo is a kind of psychic/perhaps psychic con man who moves to Midnight and continues his psychic internet business. Much of the supernatural goes on in Midnight, some characters reveal some of their secrets and abilities. One is apparent such as Lemuel the energy-sucking vampire, and his weird clientele that visit Midnight Pawn, only at night. Fiji openly claims to be a witch, and her familiar is a talking, insulting cat named Mr. Snuggles. I listened to this on audio and the narrator did such a great job. Looking forward to the next book to find out the others abilities and secrets!
    • 3/5
      I recognized a tiny bit of the humor from the Sookie series, but am having difficulty deciding whether to even continue this one. It may just be one of those few books that fare better in print than read aloud. Lots and lots of details to take in. I wonder , too, whether the series is more enjoyable in book 2, now that the stage is set. Anyone have any thoughts on that?

      I LOVED the Sookie series! Read’em all... not sure where to go next.
    • 5/5
      Absolute fun book. I felt like it was story time every time I listened.
    • 5/5
      great read really enjoyed the story worth the time for sure
    • 1/5
      Manfred, the goth psychic from the Harper Connelly books, moves to a tiny town in Texas. The town is so small that basically has a dozen residents: Manfred; his handsome landlord who owns the pawnshop, the improbably named Bobo who was a minor character in the Lily Bard mystery series; the equally improbably named witch Fiji; creepy Oliva and Lemuel; the diner owners Madonna and Teacher; the mysterious reverend who mostly does pet funerals; a hot gay couple who are clearly angels; and Shawn, Creek and Conner, the mysteriously closed-off family who operates the convenience store. It's a tiny bunch of characters, and in the right hands would be delightfully cozy or scarily claustrophobic. As it is, they're all just kinda...there. The book switches between their POVs every few pages, so the reader never gets really immersed in anyone's viewpoint. Worse, there's no depth to anything. There are a couple lines about Fiji worrying about how effective her witchcraft is, but it never informs her actions or relationships. Manfred is kinda shallowly interested in Olivia and Creek, and there are a few times when his adorbs relationship with his grandmother Xylda is referenced, but that entire relationship was in the Harper Connelly stories, and here there's just a mention of it. Someone close to Bobo dies, and although various characters tell us he looks rough and grieving afterward, he doesn't actually seem that concerned--he doesn't pester the police for information, he doesn't try to find out the truth on his own, he doesn't act out...nothing.

      Basically, there's no intensity or interest to the mystery, since no one seems all that interested or invested in who killed Bobo's ex girlfriend Audrey, and the end reveal that Conner killed her randomly because he's a sociopath is achieved through no investigatory work and is completely anticlimactic. Various other revelations pop up throughout the book--Lemuel is a vampire, Fiji's cat can talk, Fiji really can do magic--but no one really reacts to them. The characters are the least curious, most flat affected "people" in the world. They just go about their day-to-day lives (which are meticulously accounted for), not reacting or caring at all about the fact that half of them are killers or have magic or hide deep dark secrets.

      I think this is the end of my time reading Charlaine Harris.
    • 4/5
      Charlaine Harris's new mystery introduces a new set of characters and a new setting. Midnight, Texas is a dying town inhabited by a bunch of people who are keeping secrets. Manfred Bernardo moves to town to run his psychic business which is mostly conducted through the internet. His landlord Bobo runs the local pawn shop and has two other tenants in his basement - Lemuel who is a sort of vampire and Olivia who is a dangerous woman of mystery. Living next door is Fiji who is the local witch and who has a massive crush on Bobo.A couple of months before Manfred arrived, Bobo's girlfriend Aubrey disappeared. While Bobo is mourning, the rest of the residents don't miss her as she wasn't close to anyone and made a habit of hitting on all the men in town when Bobo wasn't watching. One of Bobo's secrets is that he is the grandson of a white supremacist who was stockpiling weapons before dying from a stroke. Rumor has it that Bobo inherited the cache which has grown larger and larger with each retelling. Now the local bunch want the weapons and are willing to do all sorts of damage to get them.When a town picnic uncovers Aubrey's corpse the situation gets even more dangerous. The townspeople want to find out who killed her in order to clear Bobo's name. After all, the boyfriend is usually the first suspect. And since Aubrey was sent in by the local supremacists, they believe that Bobo is guilty too.The mystery was entertaining and I did not figure out the villain before the characters did. But the bulk of this story was spent introducing the many residents of Midnight, Texas and hinting at the stories that they have hidden. I can't wait to read more in this world and want to learn all those hidden stories.
    • 3/5
      Harris explores the dark side of the psyche in this book. Each resident of Midnight, Texas, has something to hide, or something to hide from. Each resident is a little more than meets the eye. The characters were edgy but delightful in their own way, and the whodunnit was a surprise, for me at least.
    • 5/5
      Another amazing Charlene Harris book!!b love love love her stuff!!!
    • 5/5
      A change of pace from the Skokie Stackhouse series. I actually like this one best of all.
    • 4/5
      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 died-up western town. Stop at the one traffic light, and everything looks normal. Stay awhile, and learn the truth… Fun books -- I like that the world isn’t ending, it’s not anything major, it’s just a small town of like ten people who all have secrets and some drama that arises coincidentally, not because there are GRAND PLOTS omg. It’s a nice break once in a while.
    • 5/5
      Loved it! Better than tv! The reader added much to the book
    • 2/5
      This was ok. The characters felt flat to me, though there were some funny moments.
    • 3/5
      An entertaining, non-demanding urban fantasy. Follows newcomer Manfred, part-time psychic, part-time charlatan, as he settles into Midnight, Texas amongst the other residents ranging from witches and vampires to a gay couple and an uncomplicated man with a complicated history.A spot of murder and mayhem, kidnapping and arson, but mostly about the community and friendship of the people living in Midnight, all above average in kindness and likeability (which somehow is the least believeable part, even with the witchcraft and leeching).Not a lot of worldbuilding, just enough to set the scene and allow the story to unfold.
    • 3/5
      Interesting new paranormal mystery story set in a very unusual town. It's not Sookie(yet)but I see a lot of potential here.
    • 3/5
      At first, I thought this was a fifth book in the Harper Connolly series, but it’s more of an extended spin-off because it contains Manfred, a character from those books. Extended, because there are some wild, and wacky, and supernatural inhabitants of Midnight, and it’s mostly those that keep this mystery going. There are apparently two more books and I’m so taken with the people living in Midnight, I’ll read on.
    • 3/5
      Midnight Crossroad is the first of the Midnight Texas series from Charlaine Harris. The book starts out slow and introduces and town and its residence where as although informative takes away from the imagery of the story. This writing style carries throughout the book which at times makes it hard to read; however at a certain point the voice of the book seems to change making the remains chapters hard to put down with an ending that no reader could see coming. This ending however concludes with a part that could of been left out of the book as it takes away from what happened.
    • 5/5
      I really enjoyed it, and I didn't see the end coming.
    • 3/5






      ‘Midnight Crossroad’ is the first book in a new mystery series by Charlaine Harris, called ‘Midnight, Texas’.

      This is the new series for Charlaine Harris fans; and by “fans” I do mean people who are familiar with more than just her ‘Sookie Stackhouse/Southern Vampire’ HBO-adapted series. The pivoting points of Harris’s new ‘Midnight, Texas’ series are two characters from her old series ‘Lily Bard’ and ‘Harper Connelly’.

      I’ve read this being touted as the Manfred spin-off, but in my eyes he’s only one-half of the double-act of this new series. Manfred Bernardo is the lovable pierced psychic who appeared as a secondary character in Harris’s ‘Harper Connelly’ mystery-paranormal series. The other secondary character who has been upgraded to protagonist is Bobo Winthrop, golden boy of Shakespeare, in the town of Harris’s ‘Lily Bard’ series. What these two characters have in common is that they were fan-favourites, and nice guys who finished last. Both Manfred and Bobo were in the unique positions of being ideal romantic candidates for the heroines in their respective series, but lucked out in the love department due to events and better happily-ever-afters that were out of their control. (Also, vampires are kinda out of the coffin in this universe too).

      I was reading 'midnight crossroad' as someone who had read, and liked (for the most part) all of the 'Lily Bard' series by Charlaine Harris. I have never read any of the 'Aurora Teagarden' series, or the 'Harper Connelly' series. But I have read most of the 'Southern Vampire series' up until the last three or four novels in it. I really liked seeing these established characters from other universes, coming together for a fresh start. I don’t know how readers who are only familiar with Harris’s Sookie-verse will go with ‘Midnight, Texas’ – she writes enough backstory and a tight enough whodunit that anyone will get enjoyment from the story itself – but I do hope people who aren’t familiar with Harris’s backlist will be interested enough to give this new universe, and it's peoples, a try. I thought it was interesting, it kept me reading until the end, and was a good read.

      ‘Midnight Crossroad’ is quite a departure for Harris too, regardless that these characters are familiar. She’s writing her first multiple-POV series (third-person narration, but following the characters of Manfred, Bobo and Fiji in alternating chapters) and with two male protagonists when she’s previously only written female heroines. And even though this is, in my mind at least, the Manfred and Bobo show, the storyline of ‘Midnight Crossroad’ is leaning more heavily Bobo’s way. Fiji was my favorite character in this book, as maybe it’s the curse of Harris’s lovelorn characters, but I like her underdogs and Fiji is charming in her loyalty, witchiness and one-sided crushing. The town vampire, the resident "bad girl", and the reclusive preacher were all interesting enough to keep me coming back to finish this novel. (In fact, I think the preacher is really a recluse, because he occasionally turns into a were-beast of some kind. SOME kind of 'monster' was sniffing around at one point, and no other clues were given, so that story must be saved for another novel in this series. This were-reason could be why he's reclusive, and why people say "you do not want to see him angry.")

      Midnight is definitely a town with enough secrets and intriguing residents to fill a new series from Charlaine Harris. Reading this as someone who is a bigger fan of her backlist than HBO-adapted Sookie, ‘Midnight, Texas’ feels like a hark back to the cozy mysteries she excelled at writing early on – the cherries on top are Manfred and Bobo, fan-favourites who are being given a chance to shine all on their own.
    • 4/5
      A new series by Charlaine Harris set in Texas. We meet a wide variety of characters and she gives us quite a bit of background for each. There's a vampire who's unlike any you've encountered before. A witch who lives in a house she inherited from her Aunt. A small family run convenience store and another little restaurant run by another family. A pawn shop in this one little stop light town. And the newcomer to the town an online psychic. The psychic has moved into town shortly after the girlfriend of the pawn shop owner has run away. But all things are not as they seem in this little one stop light town. Will be interesting to see where she goes with the series.
    • 5/5
      Took me a lot longer to get into it than i would have liked. I think I had a hard time because i watched the tv show before reading and i just couldn't reconcile some of the characters in the book with what i "thought" they should look like based on the show. And the whole twist at the end was a complete shock to me!
    • 4/5
      Midnight Crossroad started a little slow, but I like Manfred Bernardo from the Harper Connelly series and Bobo Winthrop from the Lily Bard series, both of whom are main characters in the Midnight novels, so I kept at it. (Funnily enough, I didn't realize that the police officer, Arthur Smith, is from the Aurora Teagarden series until almost the end of the book. I liked him a lot better here than in that series, although that may also be because Charlaine Harris’s writing has improved over the years.) The town's quirky characters drew me in, and by the time Manfred, Fiji and Olivia started their investigation at the Cartoon Saloon, I was hooked. I wasn't disappointed—I really enjoyed this book.I’m not usually a fan of having multiple POV characters, but I thought the author used it very well. One of the best things about this book was the mix of the supernatural and the mundane. It’s rare (at least in the fantasy fiction I’ve read) for supernatural protagonists to have mundane problems. Also, I’ve always liked the way Charlaine Harris isn’t afraid to tackle racism in the American South head on—this book is a bit of a follow-up to Shakespeare’s Champion both thematically and, through Bobo, plot-wise.The solution to the mystery came as a complete surprise to me. Partly this was because there were only the vaguest hints, not really anything that could have led to the answer. Sometimes that’s annoying, but here it made perfect sense and fit with the general tone of the story, which is not really a whodunnit. Partly, though, it was because the solution wasn’t the kind of solution I had been expecting—it took things in a direction I didn’t foresee, and not in a bad way.All in all, I found Midnight Crossroad quite entertaining, and I’m looking forward to seeing more of the Midnighters in the sequels, Day Shift and Night Shift.
    • 4/5
      Midnight Crossroad
      3.5 Stars

      In the small (meaning barely inhabited) town of Midnight, Texas, nothing is as it first appears. Distrustful of outsiders and law enforcement, the quirky residents keep their own counsel and don't ask questions. Thus, when a barely identifiable body is discovered within town limits and one of their own is the prime suspect, the people of Midnight are determined to uncover the truth without exposing their own secrets.

      Series note: Several of the characters are crossovers from other Harris series including Bobo Winthrop from Lily Bard, Manfred Bernardo from Harper Connelly and Arthur Smith from Aurora Teagarden. While it is not necessary to have read these series in order to understand and enjoy the book, reading them does provide background and insight into certain behaviors and motivations.

      The first half of the story is dedicated to introducing the strange setting with its ghost-town like atmosphere and creepy yet oddly relatable and appealing characters. Consequently, the pacing is slow (perhaps even plodding) and readers who prefer fast and action packed scenes will be disappointed. Nevertheless, the shifting point of view and richly detailed characterization immerses the reader into the mysterious and enigmatic lives of the various residents.

      The second half involves the murder investigation, but readers expecting an exciting police procedural will, once again, be disappointed as the style is more Agatha Christie than CSI. While there are numerous red herrings and some solid twists and turns, the ultimate revelation of the culprit sort of comes out of the blue, but only if one isn't really paying attention to the details.

      In sum, Midnight Crossroads is an intriguing mix of the southern-gothic, mystery and urban fantasy genres that Charlaine Harris is so adept at writing. Nevertheless, newbies to her writing will not want to start with this series. To truly appreciate her work, one should start with either the Lily Bard or Harper Connelly books.
    • 3/5
      3.5 stars. This one reminded me of how much I loved the first few Sookie books. I do like this author's style, and the characters she has created for Midnight are fun to read.
    • 4/5
      4.5⭐️...after catching the first few episodes of Midnight, Texas and learning that it was based on Charlaine Harris's novels, I had to get my hands on them! Having loved the Sookie Stackhouse (true blood) series, I knew I would love this series, and I was correct!

      I really liked the murder mystery mixed in with the fantastical Midnighters! If you like mysteries, secrets, and magic...start this series asap!
    • 3/5
      The beginning of a new series that touches on the Shakespeare/Lily Bard series, which I enjoyed. A pleasing lite novel with a touch of weirdness, it's fun and leaves me sure I'll continue the series.
      Nice mix of fun/funky characters who live in the tiny Texas town of Midnight - everyone there has secrets, it's unspoken courtesy not to talk about them.
      Just to throw it out there - I didn't read the Sookie Stackhouse series after the first one - didn't care for it.
    • 4/5
      I really enjoyed the new cast of characters and the wide open setting which isolates them.
    • 3/5
      3..5 rating. I thought that Midnight Crossroad got off to a slow start but I certainly got into the characters and I enjoyed the book. I enjoyed the relaxed small town feel of the story. Good pacing with it's glimpse of a one gas station country town in Texas. A place where everybody knows your business and keeps to theirs for the most part. This is the kind of community that reveals their steel forged bonds in times of trouble. It is also a place where many supernatural beings have come to hide away from the outside world. I loved the character development. They were quirky, magical, nerdy and extremely different, not a "normal" in the bunch.My whole family has read and enjoyed the previous paranormal mysteries from Ms. Harris and I believe that she brought a few of her old characters into this story (namely Manfred) and gave us some new ones. I like her writing style.I will continue the series once my wife finishes the next book. Jack Murphy
    • 5/5
      I got interested in this series after watching the TV series. Let me just say the book is SOOOOOOO much better!!!! There are many many differences in the TV series and the book but the book flows and has so many details that is left out of the TV series!! If you love Charlaine Harris' books, you'll love this one too!!