Part fantasy, part horror, part love story and totally captivating. Rae “Sunshine” Seddon goes out to her family lake house for some peace and quiet. She is attacked by vampires who kidnap her and chain her up in a mansion next to Constantine, a hungry vampire who is also a prisoner.
Instead of attacking her, he gets her to tell stories to help pass the hours. In her desperation to be free, Sunshine recalls her forgotten powers of transmutation. She manages to unchain herself and Constantine by transforming her pocket knife into a key. They escape together and form a bond knowing their mutual enemies are not far behind.
I really didn’t want this book to end. McKinley creates such a magical world of mythical creatures that you will wish it was real. Sadly, it doesn’t appear that a sequel will be forthcoming. Apparently the author is waiting for divine inspiration from the story fairies, and in her words “don’t count on it”. Too bad, there is so much potential for a continuing story here. I loved it anyway.
Popularity: 12% [?]
Reader Ratings - Click On A Star to Rate This Book:
(24 votes, average: 4.67 out of 5)
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June 10th, 2006 at 1:35 pm
I thought this book to be one of the most vapid, insipid and boring reads ever. Sunshine’s going on and on and on about her thoughts and feelings without break made me wish her dead half way through the book. None of the other possible interesting characters were ever fully developed. The reader never got to feel or experience anything. After reading Rice and most other master storytellers, after watching Buffy, this was a shoddy attempt by a rank amateur. Are all of her books this bad? Not interesting. Not thoughtful. Not deep. What a waste of time.
June 10th, 2006 at 3:02 pm
Wow, your comments are pretty interesting. Thanks for giving another viewpoint. I guess that’s about the same way I feel about L.A. Bank’s books!
October 31st, 2007 at 5:05 pm
I throughly enjoyed the book, i felt as though i was Sunshine in a sense.
November 21st, 2007 at 3:43 pm
I really enjoyed “Sunshine”. It was a stay-up-til-3AM-on-a-work-night-to-finish-it kind of novel. The Sunshine character is definitely a strong, independent female but she seems to not know what she wants in life until she meets Constantine. Their relationship really keeps the book moving and the non-central characters are interestingly written. My only complaint would be that some of the action scenes seemed almost too ethereal and quickly explained. McKinley would do well to plant the action more firmly in the reader’s mind. Beyond that, the sexual tension between Sunshine and Con kept the temperature slightly above lukewarm the whole way through -and spiked here and there. Superb book with a great narrative style.
April 24th, 2008 at 10:43 am
I purchased this book because I was in need of a new vampire book and it seemed intriguing. I finished the book only because I can’t stop halfway through. I wish I never started it. It has been a while since I read it and I can’t remember anything worth remembering about it!!! Robin McKinley has written several other books that seemed lacking as well. I can’t quite put my finger on what the problem is, but none of her books have been able to capture my attention or hold an interest.
April 25th, 2008 at 6:41 am
I was so fascinated by the disparity in the above reviews, that I decided to add my 10 cents. I love the book “Sunshine” despite its obvious flaws: the world created by McKinley is so intriguing that it enabled me to look past the “breathless” monologue style (which I cannot stand). This book was in need of a walloping good edit, but it was still captivating. It has that essential spark, a true burst of imagination which made the world and, to some extent, the characters, come alive. The setting is an intriguing mix of alternative fairy and post apocalyptic sci fi, and you are only ever told enough to keep the story going. I find this kind of slow-reveal very enticing – to me it seems real: as if the narrator forgets that you have no idea about her world. You have to read between the lines and look for the clues, like we do in real life. Add to that – what an interesting heroine – a self-confessed poorly-educated baker with a compellingly strange family history, who has trouble coping with the traumas in her life, but does her best to pretend that all is ordinary.
Like many, according to posts, I would love to read a sequel – love to see Sunshine go looking for her father and that side of her family.
So, in response to above:
* I agree the monologue was awful, but we did get to know Sunshine and what she cares about – just only a little at a time.
* I too can’t stand LA Banks’ Vampire Huntress series – too much emotional angst.
* a better balance between action and first person monologuing would have been fabulous
I guess I’m defending the book – mainly because the story has stayed with me – ion comparison to all those books where I struggle to remember what it was even about. Cheers.
November 10th, 2008 at 8:20 am
I really enjoyed Sunshine.
For what it’s worth, I may be a bit biased. I picked up the book on a recommendation from Neil Gaiman, not specifically searching for a new genre story.
After reading the other reviews I will agree it’s not a hugely sophisticated writing style, so to anyone who is (or will be) put off by that I understand. If you’re after a traditional, densely crafted romantic/erotic/horror whatever you’re craving, you may be disappointed.
It’s fairly light reading, but not in an insulting way. The plot is fast paced, of the school where chapters always end on a suspenseful note, pushing you through the book quickly. There were story ideas and character dynamics that were novel and freshly used. The genre is mix of ghoulish and romantic vampire, the story peppered with all makes of fabled creature, and their interactions make for a surprisingly humorous read. I laughed out loud several times. My only reservation (very small) is I wish there was a sequel, or one coming, to dress up the history of the town and the vivid fringe characters.
November 30th, 2008 at 4:28 pm
I enjoyed Sunshine a lot. There were places where i just had to skim or even skip because i was impatient to get to the next bit of real meat but for the most part it was a great read. I finished it in two days. I also picked it up originally because of Neil Gaiman’s review and that really tells you something. Neil Gaiman writes weird fucking stuff. So that tells you that what you’re about to read is going to be his idea of “pretty much perfect.” I liked the odd writting form, the dialogue, the difference because that’s just it. I love Laurell K Hamilton’s books and I love Kim Harrison’s even more. Carrie Vaughn is great. But the thing is, they all write with the same style, they all have basically the same kinds of characters. In a lot of ways I see sunshine as a cross between Jacqueline Carey’s Kushiel series and Hamilton/Harrison/etc.’s worlds. A very different style of writing which you may or may not like, a very different kind of character. Sunshine, the book and the character, are unique and if it’s the kind of uniqueness that you enjoy this will be as good a read for you as it was for me. I’ll never regret my purchase and I hope Mckinley writes a sequel and I’ll buy it, too!
December 3rd, 2008 at 8:45 am
I think a story’s success is measured by the can’t-put-it-down-till-its-finished measurement, and that definitely applied when reading sunshine. It usually takes me about a week to finish a book, and I was glued to this one for two days until I finally finished it and ran around doing all the errands I had forgotten about in real life for the last few days!
I do agree that sometimes it got frustrating to read her thoughts that had no end, and I did skip a lot of her just “talking,” but that didnt make me put the book down for a second.
I’m just annoyed that nothing ended up happening between Rae and Con. I always like to see some sort of closure by the end of all that book-reading effort, even if it may not always be so realistic. Hey, we’re reading to get out of life for a little while, no?
I’d love to see a sequel, especially just to find out more about her father, what happened to her family etc. Why isn’t she writing one, for goodness sake?!?!
January 7th, 2009 at 1:54 pm
I truly thought this book was extrememly well written. I somehow wish that Con and Sunshine could be together, but it seems it won’t happen… or if it does we won’t know because the chance of a sequal is very small.. I thought that Con and Sunshine would have been fantastic together and I had hoped that they would actually get together at the end of the book but unfortunately it didn’t happen. I thought that some of the SOF parts were a bit dull, but I guess they were essential to the storyline.
February 5th, 2009 at 10:14 am
I heard about the book Sunshine on NPR last summer on my way to school. Since I was looking for a diversion of some sort I bought the book. To say I loved it is certainly an understatement – it is the most memorable book I have every read (except A Tale of Two Cities – which I read in the 10th grade). I’ve told everyone I know to read the book, and I teach a Communications class at a University so that’s a lot of people. Since then I’ve read many of her other books but none have been so spellbinding as Sunshine. I, like so many others who have written about this book, am wishing there would be a sequel. Maybe the same story but from Constantine’s point of view – what he was thinking. Actually I have reread the book several time and feel a bit let down at the end each time when I’m left wondering “what next?”.
What do I like about the book so much? the character’s – Sunshine and Con – are so compelling, so real (a real vampire?) so appealing. After having read Robin’s blogs, I think Sunshine, the character, is very much like Robin herself, so I have comforted myself by believing what she said in her dedication of the book “To Peter, my Mel and my Con wrapped up in one (slightly untidy) package.” Therefore, I feel Sunshine and ConMel are living somewhat happily everafter in England tending flowers, cooking and doing things.
February 5th, 2009 at 10:28 am
Already posted something.
February 5th, 2009 at 10:34 am
I liked it too.
March 10th, 2009 at 3:23 pm
I liked this book a lot better than Twilight. After reading that book I felt Meyers hadn’t met any real teenagers on which to base her characters. Sunshine was more “believable” to me. Of course McKinley is not Ann Rice, but why expect her to be. It’s a fun read with interesting characters and multi-dimensional vampires. I love Neil Gaiman and McKinley’s Sunshine sort of fits his dark, rich character world. E. M. Forster says the test of a novel is our affection for it. This one won my affection.
April 14th, 2009 at 6:19 pm
somebody tell me some good vampire books that arent all action somethigg like this one other than twilight! uggghhhhh
May 31st, 2009 at 11:05 pm
I totally adore Robin McKinley’s books, and have ever since I read Beauty: A Retelling of the Story of Beauty and the Beast. It seems to me that she enjoys rewriting this old tale a lot, as evidenced by Rose Daughter, and then Sunshine (albeit in a different way). For my part, I was thoroughly enchanted by Sunshine and don’t wish she had written it any other way. Sure, I’d love to know if Con and Rae got together eventually, but I’m not going to be devastated if a sequel never appears. In any case, for those of you who want another good vampire series to read, try Kerri Hawkins’ Blood Legacy. A friend introduced me to this and I loved it.
September 29th, 2009 at 8:52 am
_Sunshine_ is one of my favorite reads. Finally someone who recognizes that moonlight is reflected sunlight, so vampires should have a problem with it. I enjoyed the considerations of good and evil– what is to be good or evil, what happens when you take part in evil. Rae is a vegetarian, can’t stand the presence of blood, and won’t kill insects. Very consistent. I especially liked the idea that there is a recoil to endure for every action – what you send into the world affects you too. I don’t care that Con and Rae never got together (what a euphemism!). She’s happy with Mel. And the relatively angst-free narrative was a relief.
December 30th, 2009 at 8:20 pm
An extra 5 cents from another reader …
I enjoyed Sunshine, but I wouldn’t rave about it. While I appreciated the authentic feel of the main character’s first-person narrative, for my tastes the author went a little overboard. It seemed that in her zeal for an accurate representation of a person’s rambling and darting stream of consciousness, she completely discarded all rules of grammar and structure that would have served to make that stream of consciousness somewhat more comprehensible. Scenes where events should have moved quickly were bogged down by the necessity of re-reading passages to tease actual occurrences out from the tangle of tangential thoughts and musings. Even scenes where the pace was more sedate were dragged down by this necessity.
Sunshine’s world also lacked depth. A lot was hinted at, but none of it was followed through enough to feel “real”. It wasn’t the feeling of a world we didn’t have time to truly explore. It was the feeling of a thin patchwork job that covered the holes in the underling fabric of the plot.
Despite these aspects though, Sunshine was quite enjoyable. Despite some frustration at having to back track at times to find where the parenthesis that signaled a tangential thought opened, the entertainment of the tale was sufficient that this annoyance was not fatal to my wish to see it through to the end.
Unfortunately, the end left a lot to be desired. If the main thrust of the plot had been the conflict with Bo, then the offered conclusion would have been sufficient. This was not the vital thread of the plot though. The vital thread was Sunshine’s ignorance of her self and of her father’s family. The vital thread was Sunshine’s uneasy alliance with Constantine, her struggle to overcome her visceral antipathy for him, and even his struggle to ally with a creature he has to remind himself is “rational”, and not merely food. The vital thread was the conflict between the very fact of their alliance and SOF’s genocidal war on vampires as a species. In all these aspects, the conclusion simply failed to be a conclusion. The book screams for a sequel, and yet, apparently, McKinley never even gave thought to a sequel when she brought Sunshine to such an unsatisfying close.
Now, ordinarily I would applaud this approach to novel writing. An author who writes stand-alone novels and not trilogies or never-ending series? Fabulous. “Chalice”, for example, also by McKinley, is a lovely stand-alone story that works perfectly just as it is. I would hate to see that beautifully self-contained plot unraveled and stretched out over several books. “Sunshine”, however, needs a sequel. It’s simply not strong enough to stand alone.
So yes, I enjoyed Sunshine, but I wouldn’t rave about it. It’s a lot better than many other vampire series I have read, but it could have been so much better than it was, and it’s disappointing that it failed to live up to this promise.
February 6th, 2010 at 7:43 am
Wow! I’ve never thought I’d come across readers who didn’t fall in love with ‘Sunshine’ the way I did. In fact, I’m rereading it for a book club and it just makes me love it so much more.
I won’t argue the pace of the book lags at times. And while Rae does have a lot of internal dialogue going on about random tidbits of life and her other various thoughts, I found that to be very interesting as it allows the reader to be further submerged in the life and world McKinley has created.
I disagree that the book needs a good edit, as I think the writing style is whitty, intelligent, and moving. Sure, there may be one line here or there I have to re-read, but that’s the same with any book. Sometimes it’s not the writer so much as the reader. Not too mention the very bold and honest way in which she portrays Rae’s frustrations in dealing with Con and the sexual tension in such a forbidden situation.
It’s interesting to see the various viewpoints here. I’ve not yet read anything else by McKinley as the other books haven’t perked my interest. I hope to see a sequel but am not holding my breath!
August 4th, 2010 at 3:43 pm
[...] Read some other responses to Sunshine. [...]
September 28th, 2010 at 11:06 pm
I thought the power of this book was in the two main characters and the changes that came about within themselves due to their unlikely alliance. Constantine, no mere dashing guy in a black cape, is very much a dark, creepy vampire– who finds that he has truly come to care for a human. Sunshine, so entrenched in her own peaceful human world, so desirous of shutting out both the painful situation her world is in and the dark “other side” of her own nature– finds that she has come to truly care for a vampire. Their journey to the underworld (Bo’s kingdom) and back is a mythic hero’s journey– and Sunshine’s final realization that she truly does not “have to choose” between the two sides of herself mirrors Constantine’s realization that he’d rather keep her company than go out and slake his hunger. I disagree that nothing “happens between them.” The whole book is about what happens between them, and what does is, in my opinion, far more satisfying than a simple consummation of passion would have been. They have become true friends, and as a reader I sensed that the world McKinley had shown us as doomed to being “under the dark” in 100 years, had just seen its turning point.
I, too, would love a sequel– but if the writing style is to be viewed as a flaw, it is absolutely overcome by the artistry and mastery of its enriching characterizations and uplifting themes.
November 18th, 2010 at 4:25 pm
I thought this book was very well crafted. It is not verbose like some romance fiction written with the help of a thesaurus. This book is totally fresh take on the subject matter and amazingly believable. I didn’t want it to end! It is descriptive enough that you feel like you are there, but it doesn’t have disgusting sex scenes we could all do without! (I may like doing intimate stuff, but I don’t want to read about it!) this is the perfect balance. The plot is perfect. It all makes sense, and you will remember this book long after you have read about it. I still think about the first meeting of Sunshine and Constantine, and it has been years scince I read the book. I still sort of hope for a sequel. Anyone who didn’t like it must be crazy.
August 30th, 2011 at 9:01 pm
I loved this book and it surprises me that no one has mentioned all of the symbolism in this book that’s what really caught my interest and makes me want to go back and read it over and over again. I agree that not everything was thought out such as the caracters and the what will happen next but I loved how her thoughts flowed and how a lot of the symbols tied together like her tree self and her deer self all of that. It’s been forever since I have read it but I still remember that. I’m upset there’s no sequel honestly what author doesn’t want to write and sell books ( one that’s not very good at it ?)
August 30th, 2011 at 9:05 pm
It amazes me that there is someone out there that reads romances but thinks sex scenes are gross. Really? WTF