cover image Night Shift

Night Shift

Charlaine Harris. Ace, $28 (320p) ISBN 978-0-425-26322-8

Bestseller Harris (the Sookie Stackhouse books) brings a real sense of community to the characters she introduced in Midnight Crossroad and Day Shift, deepening the reader’s connection to an irresistible assortment of phone psychics and cowpunching vampires. The small, strange town of Midnight, Tex., comes complete with its own demon, whose presence is triggering suicides. The locals include weretigers, fallen angels, mercenaries with father issues, and a witch with a broken heart. Fiji Cavanaugh, proprietor of Midnight’s magical shop, finds herself discarding notions of romance with the owner of the local pawnshop as well as receiving advances from the trapped demon. At the same time, she is tangled up with a woman who is being spied on by her wealthy family and their local agents. There is less tangible tension around whether the demon will be imprisoned by the Halloween love ritual than in the question of whom Fiji will choose to perform it with her. Agent: Joshua Bilmes, JABberwocky Literary. (May)