Second Bookses

My daughter has been a huge fan of Melissa de la Cruz's Blue Bloods series for quite some time, so when I heard there was going to be a series for adults, I was pretty excited. I've enjoyed reading the fallen-angels-as-vampires books, but I was looking forward to something a little more adult, and witches are one of the tropes I love even more than vampires. Witches of East End starts off well; Joanna and her two daughters, Freya and Ingrid, live in the fictional town of North Hampton. They are centuries old, and pre-date the Salem Witch Trials, at which time they traded the ability to practice witchcraft for eternal life. However, the townspeople are so friendly, and it's been so long, and they are tempted... and soon they begin doing just a little something. Only bigger things are afoot, and soon they are embroiled in a huge mess that involves accusations reminiscent of their pasts as they try to find out what larger threat is attacking not only North Hampton, but other locations around the world.As with her Blue Bloods series, de la Cruz has a way with description, but she lets it get away with her here in adult-land. She can't resist the duality ploy again, and ties the witches in with Norse mythology. That would have been complicated enough (and trust me, I watched Thor), but she also falls prey to the temptation to crossover both her series, so we also have a brief and confusing bit with the fallen angels/vampires from her other series (that barely made sense to me and I've read most of those books), questions about a possible zombie which might not be a zombie, and who knows what else.In other words, we have at least five dueling mythologies all trying to be wrapped up into one little universe here. Guess what? It's too much for one book to handle. By the end, I could no longer keep track of alternate identities, mythologies, or much of anything. The initial premise was a good one: What would happen if witches, who've been barred from practicing since the days of Salem, were to start up again in today's society. Would history repeat itself? Unfortunately, de la Cruz clutters that premise with too much extraneous plot to the point where the premise is merely a side plot as she tries to recreate an adult version of Blue Bloods that doesn't work and becomes a muddled mess.