Review: Day Shift

Day Shift by Charlaine Harris

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


A fan of Sookie Stackhouse, I squealed to see a new series from Ms. Harris.  I missed the first book in this series and figured I could dive into the second one as a standalone.  That could have been a mistake.  This series did nothing for me.  I couldn't figure out who exactly was the main character.  Is it Manfred or Olivia?  After about a third of the way through the story, I didn't care. 

The world building here is confusing.  Perhaps it's all been explained in the first book.  In this second one, Midnight is a shell of a town with no rhyme or reason for surviving.  Every resident is special in their own way.  There are different threads to this story going on at the same time and few are resolved.  The main thread is about Manfred and how he's accused of stealing jewels from a rich customer.  The story didn't really make much sense.  The story felt like a stream of consciousness spewing forth in random moments.

The only interesting thing was learning a little bit about each character.  The tie in from Sookie's story with Barry and Quinn is a nice touch.  The talking cat was just bizarre.  Vampires, assassins, witches, shifters and angels are all hiding in plain sight.  And none of it comes across as a cohesive story.   For those who fell in love with the Sookie Stackhouse books, this series seems to be completely different.  It was hard for me to stay motivated to keep reading.  I forced myself to finish it because I wanted to see if my conclusions would come true.  The ending leaves the conflict half resolved with no sense of closure.  This series doesn't seem to be for me. 

*provided by NetGalley



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