Day Shift by Charlaine Harris

Day Shift by Charlaine Harris
Published 2015, Ace Books
Stars: ★★★☆☆

Thanks to my good friend Jessica from Rabid Reads who let me read her book swag ARC.  This review is honest and unbiased.

Charlaine, you naughty minx, you've done it again.  You've made me wish I lived in Midnight, Texas.  Regardless of the weird stuff that goes down in Midnight, I want to live there.  The people seem so nice and everyone is tightknit.  Just think it would be a fun place to live!

Unfortunately for Harris, she didn't nail it this time around.  Perhaps some of the myriad loose ends she left hanging were for book three.  If so, that's fine, but some of them felt completely ignored at the end of the book.  Left there dangling, really.  And that "dramatic" but not so dramatic scene at the end to connect with the hold-ups she'd been dropping hints about through the book didn't work for me.  Felt rushed, forced, and sloppy.

Overall, I loved the addition of some more characters from Sookie's series.  I wish that the two characters had bigger roles, especially the one who had the teeny tiny role.  You'll know which one that is when you read it.  I don't want to spoil any of it.

I really liked getting a little more background on Olivia, the Rev, Chuy, and Joe... but I wanted more growth in Lemuel, Fiji, and Bobo, and even Manfred as well.  And we got absolutely NO character development or background for Madonna and Teacher, which is disappointing too.  Harris can't keep leaving little hints that Midnight is special and everyone is there for a reason and then give us NO tidbits or teasers or information on these characters.

As a whole, I was very entertained by this book.  I pretty much always am when Charlaine is writing it.  But it wasn't her best work, considering the relatively obvious mystery solution and the sloppy addition of more storyline threads and very little character development in general.  I'll definitely still read the third one, as I like this multi-verse that she has created but it definitely won't be one of those "GOTTA HAVE IT NOW" books.