Midnight Crossroad (Midnight Texas 1) by Charlaine Harris

I've dipped into a number of series by Charlaine Harris. I find them light and amusing (except when they're not: glares at last couple of the Southern Vampire books) an easy "palate cleanser" for my brain between other books that work the gray matter differently. When I saw the start of a new series, I wondered where the author would go after the phenomenally successful Sookie Stackhouse books, so I picked Midnight Crossroad up to check out.

Midnight, Texas, the town with more supernatural misfits than tumbleweeds. Standard set up: Psychic moves to a new town. Meets his witch-neighbor, local vampire, and a few other characters with unclear motives and possibly shady pasts. There's a bit of a mystery over "what happened to the girlfriend of the antique shop owner" as she upped and disappeared one day. Now, the white supremacist  group from her past is out to find/avenge her, which doesn't bode well for the inhabitants of Midnight. But as I said, there's a witch, a psychic, and a vampire, and some kick-ass others, who will fight to keep the town safe.

My thoughts? An okay start for a series of this sort. It may be telling that my favorite character is Mr Snuggly, a cat. I felt there was a strong effort not to draw on the Sookie elements of vampire-dom, but at the same time, saw references to other series (ie  the Shakespeare one, though it's been a while since I read any of the Lily Bard books or enough of that series,  to pick up more).  I suppose the characters, and their back-stories, will round out and develop. right now, there's just a lot of hints and foreshadow.

I rounded up to 3/5 stars because of Mr Snuggly, who stays true to his catness, even when forced into heroic measures.

Tags: an-author-i-read, fantasy, ok-but-not-great, part-start-of-a-series, read, set-in-the-south, thank-you-charleston-county-library, vampires-ghosts-and-other-creatures