Oh man what a fucking disappointment. I was really really looking for some creepy vampires, this has been tagged as "horror"? Didn't really feel horror-ish to me.. annnnd I don't know but Constantine was like the lamest vampire love interest ever. The female MC annoyed the fuck out of me and I mostly just fantasized about kicking her teeth in.
And for the most part of the book ABSOLUTELY NOTHING happened!!! It was all blah blah blah "the Others this and that" and making cinnamon rolls.

I can't even remember when I read a book this boring...

I didn't really like this book, yet i didn't not like it either.

It took me a week to read this book which is a rare thing for me as I average a book every day or 2. I just wasn't captivated by it. Not just that it was so Slow some ground coverage went on for pages!

Sunshine bored me to bits...it seems like she just goes on and on *yawn*. I found myself having to re-read a ton of pages cause she would being doing one thing and then start rambling on about something so different and i'd be so lost because she was so erratic.

I wanted to stop reading 100 pages in and then again at 200 in, at 300 in i just couldnt wait for the end - not because i was interested, because i always have to finish a book i start no matter how much i lose interest...Or maybe I was waiting for something exciting to happen??

The "Almost" sex scence was horrible...didnt even belong in the book at all. It was like "*WHOA* How did we get here .. Oh never mind it's over!"


The most exciting part of the book for me was when she was kidnapped in the start of the book and 1st met con, did a little transfiguration...a little saving and escaping...Yep that was about all the excitement for me.

That said there were parts of the book i liked. I liked the powers she (sunshine) possesed...very unique. I did like the plot regardless of how long it took me to figure it out lol And the charecters were strong too. Con had about as much emotion as a ton of bricks, but that suited him to a T and I liked him. The whole wards, charms, badspots and all the other little things were interesting.

I didn't hate the book, it just didn't cut it.
And now all im left with is an annoying craving for cinnamon.

I wish that Robin Mckinley's Sunshine never had to end. I almost didn't read it. I'd visit the fantasy shelf in the book shops and go "ooh um do I want to read this or not?" (Funny how the films and books I debate on are often the ones that I've loved the most.) Now, I visit the McKinley shelves, beaming at my favorites. "I wish I could read you for the first time again!"

I read the goodreads and amazon reviews. Some are favorable, others are not. I couldn't tell anyone if they'd like it or not. It's the difference between liking someone and not liking them. The kinds of people that you just click with when you first talk to them. Some grow on you. Sunshine could easily annoy anyone, it's hard to say. Personally, I loved Sunshine's voice. The rambling, yammering, babbling, run-on sentences, digressions (really? *gasp*!). Robin Mckinley's world building and Sunshine's exterior and inner lives were "This is where I live" taking me by the hand. I never wanted to leave. Sometimes quiet reflection is best. Those unnameable life things like falling in or out of love. I've often thought people made up reasons afterwards to put a finger on something that just plain is. Another thing I loved about this book is that those facts are the underlying, respectful quiet. The lust for life is vibrant. I loved it all. The taking by the hand and thought threads I didn't wanna let go of.

I didn't want to let go of the darkness either. McKinley made it necessary. Like how the best artists will see the beauty in the mundane, McKinley saw the darkness in everything. Turning out the lights and seeing what is really there. Rather, it would be hearing because most can't see in the dark. Star Wars lifeforce stuff. McKinley is freaking Yoda. Put your ears to the grindstone (as Con lives in stone! Right-on, Mariel! Idiot) and all kinds of things slither out from the bottom. I loved the fantasy of what had been trapped getting free. Owning up to the dark.

McKinley is the best at writing those haunting scenes that stick out in my mind. (I don't wanna spoil for anyone who hasn't read it...) The Hero and the Crown had a great part of a talking dragon's head infecting the heroine with its sickness beyond death. That stood out to me and I liken it to my own negative thoughts during times of depression. A dragon's head mounted on my wall would taunt me. (I inherited my grandpa's shark's head on a wall mount. I'd get rid of it if it weren't one of two things I have of his [d'oh and don't forget the cat, Mariel!]. My birds like to sit in its head. Probably shouldn't have reminded myself of that. I'm just the kind of nutjob who will make up a shark voice and use it to threaten the little guys...)
Sunshine has no shortage of those scenes. When Sunshine meets Con. There was no doubt that this book was going down in my favorites list after that scene.
I pictured Con the vampire to look like Dave Gahan during the Songs of Faith and Devotion Depeche Mode era. (Depeche Mode's In Your Room video, for example.) Um I kinda have a type. Dave Gahan/Jeremy Northam/Michael Imperioli/Mitchell on uk Being Human show (sigh they are doing an American remake). (Mitchell is a wonderful vampire character. I love his struggles to be human. Much like humanity struggles to be human. Badly.) Yeah, he's sexy but that's just me being a pervert. The point of this story was never about romance. It's just about attraction. Mervyn Peake wrote in his wonderful Gormenghast books that Fuchsia was naturally more attracted to the dark than to the light. It's the way that some people grow in directions.
I do wish that McKinley would write a sequel. She has said that she might eventually write another set in the same 'verse. There was more that I'd like to know about the magical elements. Otherwise, I just wish it went on because it was that absorbing that I could forget about everything else. Why can't every book do that?

P.s. One thing everyone is right about is that the cinnamon rolls sound delicious.

Such a promising start to the story and then...what the heck happened?

I picked up the book because I enjoyed Ms. McKinley's take on "Beauty and the Beast", which is one of my favorite fairy tales. From the short description, I thought "Sunshine" seemed really interesting and I very much enjoyed the first few pages....until Sunshine gets out of her prison. After that, it all went downhill.

There was virtually no character development aside from the protagonist. It was all about Sunshine, Sunshine, and more Sunshine. One thing that particularly bothered me was that Sunshine confided in nobody. I mean, loner protagonists aren't anything new. But seriously, not a single person? In fact, she is not even a loner...she has family, even a boyfriend...who she apparently cares about. But at no point does she even think about confiding in them or trusting them. Then why on earth should we, as readers, care about all these characters? I never thought that I would say this, but I was even missing the generic, token best friend who is always present in books like these...the one who is always selfish, clueless, supposed to provide comic relief, lusts after the "boy" who of course only has eyes for the protagonist, etc. Well, Sunshine didn't even have one of those.

Forget the side characters. The author doesn't even spend time on one of the main characters. For example, Constantine. He is supposed to be one of the main characters but he is hardly in the story and you don't know anything at all about him even at the end of the book. Why is he different from Bo? Why does he some empathy as opposed to the others? On that note, what exactly is Bo's story? Now that is something I would have liked to know more about.

I was plodding through the book, praying for it to be over, all because I thought there would be a kick-ass fight scene at the end...where you see exactly why everyone was so scared of Constantine even when he was all chained up and injured. Well, guess what? I didn't even realize that the "fighting" was over when I got to that part. It was just about the most anti-climactic ending she could have come up with.

The author introduces all these "Others"...demons, weres, etc. But she doesn't spend any time on them. Actually, she hardly spends any time on vampires and they were the "main" Others in this story. I am actually wondering right now what she did spend time on. Not the human characters, not the vampires, not any of the other supernatural beings...cinnamon buns got more "book" time than all the aforementioned entities combined!!!

I have so many questions about this book that I am literally blue in the face right now. The only thing I can think of is that the author intended to write a sequel and hence left so many things open. I sincerely hope that is the case because, as I said, I really enjoyed "Beauty" and I would really like to read more of Ms. McKinley's work.

If you see the read date, you would be surprised, but hey, i don't take months to read a book.

I'll start from where i left it, which is where i remember.

Sunshine/Rae is back home. Yippee(note the sarcasm). That's what it felt like with her.

The main problem with Sunshine were her internal thoughts. She had a lot, too many. And OK.→ Head=thoughts=chaos, and it doesn't make al attractive book. But here there was only Chaos, everywhere. She would be thinking about one thing, the next, she would think about her childhood. And i get that's how a mind works, but it was hard to follow a storyline.

But maybe it had to do with the fact that there were 4 parts, no chapters in between. That was confusing.

Also, no timeline. Rae could be home and al of a sudden it was 2 months later.

But don't think it was all bad, otherwise the rating would have been lower....

I feel to lazy to write anymore, plus it's sunny outside, so bye.

Just know that even though it got to heavy (all the reading), i couldn't put the book down.

But i wanted a more closed ending, not a "and they walked out into the night, hand in hand". Con and Sunshine had something.

It's a 5 stars book because:

1)It's surprise me and made me cry. Don't kill me saying this but it's not a romance... I put it on my romance shelf reading the last phrase of this book. I cry with a huge smile on my face (oh so romantic! It's a stupid thing, really, not a great and long romantic scene, but 2 words... said by someone I would never expected... and I cry ).

2) Robin McKinley is a master with words. It's a wonderful written book. You never get bored, or have time to breath. One scene happen after another and Sunshine never stop.

3) Sunshine, the main female character, is a terrific storyteller. Before this book I thought that Charlaine Harris had create the best female narrator (Sookie of Dead Until Dark), but no! I change my opinion! Sunshine is strong, hilarious, ironic and lonely... so lonely! Strong, with her father heritage, but weak because nobody help her to grow to became what she really is... a tremendous witch!

4) The imaginary world of this book is so well written that I believe in every word the narrator say! It's so hard to find a book where mythical creatures live with normal humans that make me think "ok, that could happen in real live". You will be Sunshine and a little step at time you will discover her world... I can say anything or will spoil the story. She will let you know where she live slowly, and that was magnificent!

5) Another thing of this book deserve my 5 stars... it's a new way of present a vampire book. Nothing is like another vampire book... absolutely nothing! And I love it!

Little example:

....The mere experience -I won't call it sound - of his voice was like having the skin peeled off me...

So forget the romantic Tom Cruise (Lestat) or Brad Pitt (Louis) seductive vampires of Anne Rice... here, when Sunshine talk about the dark ones, the vampires, you get scary... and you hate them ... all of them... inclusive the main male character (I didn't said who he is or his name... I discover together with Sunshine, and I hope you do the same. It's much more fun if you don't know anything about him... and much more interesting).

5 stars, and a great applause that my valuation of this book. Enjoy this book... I love it!

Rae “Sunshine” Seddon is a pastry chef who refers to herself simply and humbly as “a baker,” yet her pastries draw in all sorts of characters from all over New Arcadia, a sleepy small town that’s on its way to recovering after the great “Voodoo Wars.” The wars which happened several years ago pitted humans against otherworldly creatures; the majority of battles were fought against vampires, the worst of the otherworldly creatures. These wars left “bad spots,” places with strong magical presence, all around New Arcadia (and presumably in other towns as well). Because of these wars, vampires and humans do not live among each other, and vampires are terminated immediately following capture.

Rae leads a reasonably average life and works as a baker for her family restaurant. She has an overprotective mother, an affectionate step-father, a pair of teenage half-brothers, a boyfriend who’s a cook, and an assortment of friends from town. Her seemingly dull existence is turned upside down, for lack of a better term, when she is kidnapped by a gang of vampires and finds herself a waiting meal for another vampire. But this isn’t just any vampire. It’s a vampire that’s trying to resist its natural instinct to feed on her. The most “unlikely” thing happens (unlikely only to Rae, but perfectly predictable to us); she begins to like him, although his vampiric nature still disgusts her. Things become more interesting from this point on.

Some notes and spoilers:

I don’t see this story as a romance because there’s very little mentioning of romantic relationships. Rae has a steady boyfriend, but they’re emotionally distant, almost closed off, from each other. She has an attraction to a vampire, but it’s perhaps because she owes him her life and he owes his to her. They go through a series of intense ordeals together, so it’s only natural that they’re drawn to each other. And that’s the point, these interactions are natural, not forced.

While there were several things I liked about this book, there were several other things that did not work for me.

Things that worked:

World building. I really liked how McKinley set up this post-great-war alternate universe. There’s a desolate, yet thriving feeling to New Arcadia. This world is very much like our own, yet a little different. The differences aren’t mentioned all at once. We get a little bit of them as the story unfolds.

Magic system. Magic in this world is alive and conscious… and moving. The idea that charms and wards can act of their own volition is fascinating to me.

The SOFs. Of course the Feds would be a nuisance.

Post-traumatic stress. I don’t often see PTSD in urban fantasy, and when I do, it’s usually depicted carelessly, like a brush off to appease an editor. Considering how much violence and peril UF characters experience, it’s a wonder these characters can function at all, let alone go through it night after night. However, Rae’s post-traumatic stress is written with the emotional gravity that’s fitting of her post-kidnapping experience, and it makes sense that she’d continue to relive these events and never feel safe again.

Things that didn’t work:

First person narration. At times, it can become exhausting to be in Rae’s head, her PTSD notwithstanding. She thinks about everything a lot and repeatedly, most of it important but some of it trivial.

Chatty inner monologues. It would be difficult for a reader to get into this story if they don't enjoy this style of narration. You’re in Rae’s head all the time.

* * * * *

I still maintain that this is the book that Twilight should have been, if only Twilight had been fortunate enough to be written by a writer who understands urban fantasy and vampire lore.

Cross-posted at https://covers2covers.wordpress.com/2...

This is a stunning book which caught me entirely by surprise the first time I read it. You see, I had read a few by this author before and loved her particular brand of fairy tale, heroic fantasy writing. I bought it sight unseen, started reading it and then spent some time recovering from the literary punch to the solar plexus it gave me....

Because Sunshine is an extraordinary book; while elements of fairy tale remain, this has a post-apocalyptic, alternative world grittiness to, it that I had never encountered in this authors work before. This novel was emotionally engaging for me from the first and I have been re-reading it for years, it never fails to deliver on the enchantment nor on the punch to the solar plexus (somewhat diminished, perhaps, as I expect it now, but still present).

Sunshine's real name is Rae, she works as a baker in Charlie's, a coffee shop owned and run by her step father. Sunshine LOVES her job, she adores baking, being the queen of the cinnamon roles, inventing new, inventively named sweet delights. She does not mind getting up in darkness to go to work and knead the dough that means she gets off early, in daylight and can lie in the sun. Because Sunshine' nickname is very suited to her - she seems to recharge from the sun. She is used to having her life revolve around Charlie's ; her mother works there in accounts, her brothers help out, her boyfriend is a cook there and on their day off they go to movie night with the family and coworkers together. This one night though, Sunshine wants some personal space. She walks away from movie night and drives down to the cabin her parent's used to live at down by the lake, before her mother left her father, before the Voodoo wars. She is sitting on the porch looking over the lake, she does not hear them coming, you don't, with vampires.

The world building in the novel is amazing, it is beyond doubt my favourite modern vampire book. It is unique in so many, understated ways. Set in a world like this one only vampires and a lot of other things that go bump in the night are real including magic users. There were wars, though we never hear about them in too much detail, only about their effects.

Sunshine as a main character enchanted me, I loved the twist of her connection with the sunshine, because I have always suspected that I, too, am partly solar powered. Lying in the sun restores me more than sleep some days, so I was delighted by this as a character development. Now, over the years of reading this, my relationship with Rae has changed. When I first read it I was a young woman, not that different in age to Rae, as I get older, the character in the novel becomes younger, more uncertain. At times I find myself frustrated with her actions, I want more decisiveness, less doubt.... Then I remember how I agreed with her the first time I read it, and see through the lens of time how I have changed over the years, how Rae's uncertainty was my uncertainty, when I was much younger. This does not diminish the story for me in any way.

The vampire theme is also unique, the way that Constantine is written is fascinating, because you never get his POV, only Rae's so we are always a little unsure of him, a little bit on edge about the world and it's events. Again, totally different to any use of vampires that I have read, at once they become less human and more malevolent and dangerous than we have come to see them in popular literature (No, they certainly DO NOT sparkle), but there are obviously hidden depths we never see and can only guess at. We are never told Con's history, little about the society or structure of vampires in general, it is all suggestion, subtleties and innuendo.

An eternally vivid, engrossing reading experience with an enchanting leading character, this is one book I will never part with and refuse to lend out; whenever I need to re-read it, I want it right there, where I can put my hand on it instantly.

This was a very welcome surprise coming out of my dire expectations. :)

I mean, a vampire romance. Seriously? Another?

Well stop scratching your head and stop moving on to another title. This happens to be one of the *good* ones. There are lots of elements that you've seen before, I'm sure, but it's all in how its written. McKinley has been writing all kinds of fantasy for over thirty years. She knows how to accomplish a lot in relatively no time at all.

Gorgeous world-building and a populace that will soon be overrun by vampires. Part-demons and sorcerers waging wars against them. The elemental mastery of the magic is amazing. Sunshine? This isn't just a nickname. :) When these little bits and pieces started unfolding out of the normal bakery life and a nasty kidnapping, I kept thinking to myself: well, isn't this just another setup for a romance?

Yes. BUT. McKinley never stints on complicated and interesting plots that kept me going all the way through. It kind of stunned me just how deep and complex this novel became out of my initial observation. And it's not just the characters, either. The kinds of races, the kinds of magic, the twists and the turns, all of them were added like spice to the novel and it kind of blew me away.

I've read a lot of mediocre vamp novels. I've read a few excellent ones. This one fooled me on it's premise and it's opening. It turned into an excellent one. :)

So what about shelves that call it YA? Why didn't I also do the same? Because she's apparently a quarter of a century old. Long out of HS and working happily in a bakery. That *might* be called a tiny tiny sliver of the new-adult market, but there's a LOT of dark stuff going on here with complicated emotions and reactions. It's definitely not simple and its often beautifully adult. :)

I completely recommend for fans of better vampire novels. (Even ones that feature romance!)

Edit 12/6/16:
It has been brought to my attention that I should clarify what kind of romance this is. It's not Eros. It's Philia. That's the greek term for ppl you'd trust your life for in battle. Deep friendships. Ultimate trust. These two share a lot more than just that. Psychic bonds, the ability to pull one another from the brink even out of outright battle, and he even gives her a wondrous magical item that allows her access to his sanctum of sanctums. That's a level of trust unheard of in a world where all vampires know that they can't trust each other, let alone any other kind of person. :)

So I call it romance in the traditional sense. A huge step up from a buddy-novel, too. :)

2024 Re-read

Not sure why I absolutely had to read this novel again, but it was available at the library and I signed it out. I enjoyed it the second time around. I still wonder why Ms. McKinley never wrote a follow-up?

Original Review

I am a sucker for vampire stories. (Hahaha, see what I did there?) So I was almost guaranteed to like this novel. But I appreciated the differences between this book and some of the more usual vampire fantasies. Rae, aka Sunshine, finds herself in a very dangerous situation, early in the action. She is shackled in a deserted house with a vampire who is similarly imprisoned. It's pretty obvious that she is the live mouse put into the cage with a bird of prey.

Here's where Sunshine's urban fantasy heroine pedigree shines through. She spent most of her life denying to herself who her father was. But she fondly remembers his mother who taught her the first few tricks to do with her magical talents. All of a sudden, those hidden, mostly forgotten skills are going to come in handy. And she seems to have made a friend, as the captive vampire, Constantine, comes with her and they mutually stagger to safety.

Constantine is not the usual sensual, attractive vamp, all interested in human women. Indeed, he's very removed from humanity and actually rather reptilian, but seems to have some sense of honour or comradeship or something. Sunshine frequently wonders what she has gotten herself into. Her disappearance has brought her to the attention of the police of the supernatural and their questions make her feel guilty that she feels responsible and has friendly feelings for a vampire. She and Con seem to adhere to the old saw that when you save someone you are then responsible for them forever. Since they escaped as a team, they seem destined to remain a team. Their strange entanglement develops as the book progresses and as they decide to deal with the vamp who trapped them together in the first place.

McKinley's refusal to follow the well worn rut of most urban fantasy tales was both refreshing and sometimes annoying. I hadn't realized how programmed I have become to expect certain plot points, like for instance a human-style romance. I am also kind of impressed that she felt one book was enough. If you want to know where Sunny goes from there, you'll have to write fan fiction.

Book Number 438 of my Science Fiction & Fantasy Reading Project.

First of all, let me say I love Robin McKinley's work, and was so excited to see a new title I just grabbed it and started right in. I was pulled into this new world, having a hard time putting the book down, when WHAM! Two pages of erotic description, using language I would never have expected from an author of McKinley's caliber. I felt betrayed, as if I had found a beloved, trusted family friend showing pornographic videos to my children. The language and passage under consideration did nothing either to advance the plot or enhance the characterizations. It was just there, like a worm in the center of what looks to be a lovely piece of fruit. I went on to finish the book, and while there were no more episodes of this nature, my enjoyment of the story was tarnished. McKinley has dealt with far darker sexual issues (Deerskin), but she has never before resorted to the vulgar or titillating trash talk of the so-called romance novels. This could have been a fun read, but fell short. It isn't necessary for a gifted author like McKinley to cheapen her talent by pandering to the lowest common denominator.

I liked the story and the characters, but at the same time the narrative made my head hurt. Possibly it's because of the colloquial first person POV that sometimes goes off in long tangents. Long, long tangents.

This book was recommended by a number of people, mostly on LJ (and mostly by people who were frothing at the mouth at Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight series). I duly borrowed a copy from the library. And my sister read it too, thanks to that quote from Neil Gaiman on the cover. She’s such a Gaiman fan, XD.

I wanted to like this. It ended up just being ok in my list. I have a few problems with it, mostly with the way the narrative jumps. The book is in the first person, Sunshine’s point of view, and written rather colloquially. I don’t have real problems with the POV or even the language; my problem is how information is presented. We need to know more about the world of course, this post-apocalyptic earth where vampires and demons roam, but there’s just too much exposition, and it’s given in chunks. And the narrative goes off in sudden tangents — sometimes for exposition purposes, sometimes just to point out something that catches Sunshine’s fancy at the moment, and sometimes it’s very, very long. She’s about to stab someone with a table knife, and there’s suddenly pages and pages on the virtues of using stakes made of other things — I think it was apple wood and ivy? — instead of stainless steel. It just throws me off. It also made the book unnecessarily bloated.

The asides (in parenthesis) and the many dashes littered across the book made me pause as well. It’s, uh. It’s too much like my own writing, I guess. The day I manage to send an email out without parentheses or em dashes in it will be the day the world ends. I keep trying to break the habit, but it’s hard, and seeing someone so comfortable doing something I’m trying to stop gives me a really bizarre feeling, especially when I realise how distracting those asides are.

I like the character Sunshine. I love her almost obsessive passion with baking and bread and cinnamon rolls, and how much she loves sunshine and how she can soak it all up. I love how she’s normal except when she’s not, and how, despite everything, she wants “to go on making cinnamon rolls”. I like her relationship with everyone at the bakery — Charlie especially, and Mel. Con certainly piqued my interest, but in honest truth I’m glad he wasn’t always there. (My sister wished Con was around more. No, no thanks. This book is about Sunshine, not . . . some vampire romance story. If there was a sequel, then I wouldn’t mind more Con. We need explanations, after all. And I wouldn’t mind, also, more explanation on Mel. Just who is that dude? Also, quite randomly, I keep interchanging him with Hank from Someplace to be Flying when I think of the book, and I’m not certain why. It is possibly because of the tattoos.)

The book can be laugh-out-loud funny at points, thanks to Sunshine’s quirky observations about a lot of things. Though I have to wonder: are Carthaginian hells worse than any other sort of hell? Why the qualifier?

Some things aren’t explained, and the book felt like a set up to something more. I was surprised that there were no plans for a sequel.

Now I shall stay away from vampires. At least for a while.