Sunshine

by Robin McKinley

From award-winning and national bestselling author, Robin McKinley, comes this dark, sensual vampire fairy tale. "A gripping, funny, page-turning, pretty much perfect work of magical literature."--Neil Gaiman

“Sunshine” is what everyone calls her. She works long hours in her family’s coffeehouse, making her famous “Cinnamon Rolls as Big as Your Head,” Bitter Chocolate Death, Caramel Cataclysm, and other sugar-shock specials that keep the customers coming. She’s happy in her bakery—which her stepfather built specially for her—but sometimes she feels that she should have life outside the coffeehouse. One evening she drives out to the lake to get away from her family, to be alone. There hasn’t been any trouble at the lake for years.

But there is trouble that night for Sunshine. She is abducted by a gang of vampires who shackle her to the wall of an abandoned mansion, within easy reach of a figure stirring in the moonlight. Sunshine knows that he is a vampire and that she is to be his dinner. Yet when dawn breaks he has not attempted to harm her.

And now he needs her help to survive the day...

• ISBN10: 0515138819
• ISBN13: 9780515138818
• Publish Date: 30 November 2004 (first published 30 September 2003)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Publisher: Penguin Putnam Inc
• Imprint: Jove Publications
• Format: Paperback (US Mass Market)
• Pages: 416
• Language: English
• URL: https://penguinrandomhouse.com/books/isbn/9780515138818

Reviews

[scarr]

3.5 - so many great things about this book and also incredibly difficult to get through some of the monologue-ing. I found the world-building to be excellent! I wish there was a planned sequel because I’d love to spend more time in this world!

[lizarodz]

Quite the Novel Idea https://quitethenovelidea.com https://quitethenovelidea.com/liza-reviews-sunshine-robin-mckinley/Recently, I saw a tweet from Charlaine Harris - author of the Southern Vampire series (also know as the Sooky series) - where she was praising how good Sunshine was.  I therefore proceeded to buy the eBook and jumped head first into Sunshine's world.  I have to say that I really liked this one.  

I've read two books by McKinley before and they were very different from each other, but mostly fantasies.  Rae, is known by all as Sunshine because she likes to soak up the sun.  Sunshine is a baker and I loved all the talk about baked goods (after all, I bake too!), she's 25 and in a relationship, she's know by the whole town and she likes her privacy.  One night, to escape a fight with her mother, she decides to go out to the old family house out in the lake.  There, she's abducted by a group of vampires and meets Cam.  They are both held prisoner and manage to escape together.  One thing I need to mention is that Sunshine rambles. A lot.  She starts talking about one thing and then rambles about something else, on and on.  I found it sometimes useful, but often aggravating.

The vampire lore in Sunshine adopts some of the usual aspects such as burning in the sun, being able to do compulsion and  and of course needing blood.  However, the vampires in this post-vampire-wars look like death, they are completely silent, they stink and mostly kill all their victims.

Cam is different in the sense that he doesn't eat Sunshine and instead they help each other to escape and even bigger evil.  Cam tries really hard to make himself a little less threatening and inhuman so it's easier for Sunshine to be around him.  The form a pact and then later an unexpected bond.

Needless to say, the world building is intricate and quite amazing.  There are all sorts of "Others", like fey, weres, wizards, witches, goblins,   and a lot of rules and politics that regulate what they can do or cannot do.  Even two types of police, one for humans and one for the "Others".  The writing was very imaginative, this world has new words, new technology, new beings.  I loved it!

The ending is a bit open ended and it makes me wonder if McKinley had other books set in this world in mind.

 

Overall
I really enjoyed Sunshine.  For the life of me, I don't understand why McKinley didn't turn this amazing world into a series.  There is so much potential to it, including the sort of open ending and the strong connection between Sunshine and Con.  I'm sure a lot of reviewers over the years had said the same: *more pretty please*This review was originally posted on Quite the Novel Idea

[ladygrey]

I really liked the beginning of this book, probably the first third with Sunshine kidnapped and trapped and having to figure all that out. After that, though, I wasn't as interested in what was happening. As much as I love [a:Robin McKinley|5339|Robin McKinley|http://www.goodreads.com/images/nophoto/nophoto-F-50x66.jpg]'s work and the world she created in this book and the sense of magic, the plot in the last two thirds / half of the book was surprisingly uninteresting for me.

Also, the final confrontation was too abstract for me to get my mind around, a lot like the end of [b:Spindle's End|77368|Spindle's End|Robin McKinley|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1170900108s/77368.jpg|2984336]. Which I enjoyed even better the second time. It's very likely that if I were to read [b:Sunshine|8088|Sunshine|Robin McKinley|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1255668220s/8088.jpg|2321294] a second time I'd like it better.