Is this the best vampire novel ever? Possibly.

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Product Description

There hadn't been any trouble out at the lake for years, and Sunshine just needed a spot where she could be alone with her thoughts. Vampires never entered her mind. Until they found her.

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #37363 in Books
• Published on: 2004-11-30
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 416 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Buffyesque baker Rae "Sunshine" Seddon meets Count Dracula's hunky Byronic cousin in Newbery-Award-winner McKinley's first adult-and-then-some romp through the darkling streets of a spooky post-Voodoo Wars world. Now that human cities have been decimated, the vampiric elite holds one-fifth of the world's capital, threatening to control all the earth in less than 100 years, unless human SOFs (Special Other Forces) can hold them at bay by recruiting Sunshine, daughter of legendary sorcerer Onyx Blaise. As breathlessly narrated by Sunshine herself, the Cinnamon Roll Queen of Charlie's Coffeehouse, in the inchoate idiom of Britney, J. Lo and the Spice Girls, Sunshine's coming-of-magical-age launches when she is swarmed by noiseless vampires one night and chained in a decrepit ballroom as an entr‚e for mysterious, magnetic, half-starved Constantine, a powerful vampire whose mortal enemy Bo (short for Beauregard) shackled him there to perish slowly from daylight and deprivation. Most of the charm of this long venture into magic maturation derives from McKinley's keen ear and sensitive atmospherics, deft characterizations and clever juxtapositions of reality and the supernatural that might, just might, be lurking out there in "bad spots" right around a creepy urban corner or next to a deserted lake cabin. McKinley knows very well-and makes her readers believe-that "the insides of our own minds are the scariest things there are."
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Rae Seddon, nicknamed Sunshine, lives a quiet life working at her stepfather's bakery. One night, she goes out to the lake for some peace and quiet. Big mistake. She is set upon by vampires, who take her to an old mansion. They chain her to the wall and leave her with another vampire, who is also chained. But the vampire, Constantine, doesn't try to eat her. Instead, he implores her to tell him stories to keep them both sane. Realizing she will have to save herself, Sunshine calls on the long-forgotten powers her grandmother began to cultivate in her when she was a child. She transforms her pocketknife into a key and unchains herself--and Constantine. Surprised, he agrees to flee with her when she offers to protect him from the sun with magic. They escape back to town, but Constantine knows his enemies won't be far behind, which means that he and Sunshine will have to face them together. A luminous, entrancing novel with an enthralling pair of characters at its heart. Kristine Huntley
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review
“Step into Robin McKinley’s thrilling, beautifully described world.”
—Jayne Ann Krentz

“A smart, funny tale of suspense and romance.”
—San Francisco Chronicle

“Sunshine takes everything we have always known about the menacing eroticism of pale men with sharp teeth, and throws it up into the air.”
—Time Out

“McKinley [balances] the dark drama with light touches of humor. Fans of Buffy the Vampire Slayer will feel at home, but McKinley’s novel has its own originality and depth.”
—Orlando Sentinel

“A good book with some nice little twists on the magic theme.”
—Kansas City Star

“Well-written and exciting.”
—Rocky Mountain News

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Customer Reviews

So much potential...
Such a poor execution!

McKinely's "Beauty" is one of my all time favorite fairytale re-tellings. When I figured out Sunshine was a modern retelling of the same tale, I snatched it up!

Oh, how I wanted to love this book. Con is a fresh take on the ubiquitous bad-boy vampire that many other author's have tried to hash out, and failed. Sunshine (Rae) is a bit annoying, but equally as flawed and compelling as Con. Together, they could have gone places.

Except that the author was way too busy setting the scene and forgot to tell the story. Because the book is narrated by Sunshine, the entire novel comes at you from her perspective. Which is just fine, except Sunshine liked to dawdle on the unimportant (so, so many parenthetical sentences, which I do not like), rather than tell the story at hand.

And because of this, the book suffered from flow and sequence. And the reader suffers a case of unanswered questions.

I truly hope that Ms. McKinley writes a sequel to this novel - I for one want to know why Constantine can go out in the moonlight...

If you hate dialogue, you'll love this book.
Rae "Sunshine" Seddon is the world's best cinnamon roll baker, or at least she will smack you over the head with that idea until you start believing it. She's a pastry chef in a conspicuous diner filled with possibly-quirky regulars that we don't get to hear much of because we spend our time in Sunshine's head, either in long expository paragraphs about her world of the paranormal (which reminds me: McKinley gives no reason for the explanation role of the narrator. There is no, "I am writing this story for a legal case and must explain this paranormal creature to you." There is no reasoning behind the narrator's exposition role, and there really needs to be one because she is a character within the story itself), or else traipsing off into uninteresting and unnecessary anecdotes on baking.

I'm sorry to say I couldn't get beyond the first half of the book, so this review is only of what I read: Sunshine goes off to her lake house to think some things over, gets kidnapped by a gang of vampires, and while in captivity meets Constantine, the only vamp who doesn't want to drink her blood. She manages to escape through her own considerable abilities as a "Magic Handler" and decides to save Constantine (though she doesn't know why she did that, although she will whine about this decision for the next hundred pages). When she gets back to civilization, things about her town of New Arcadia and her own self are not quite what they should be...

Here are the inexcusable flaws: good and likable subject matter (vampire with a heart of gold, average girl who finds herself with extraordinary powers) that proceeds with the most drawn-out exposition I've read in a while, and a failure to flesh out any other character. I just. couldn't. read. any. more.

Go back and read some of the old Anne Rice Vampire Chronicles rather than pick up this plodding vampire romance.

Vampires and Baking
I'm a foodie, so it's more than a little fun to read a story where the protagonist obsesses about food, food creation, feeding people, food gadgets, and the assorted food mania that foodies get into.

I've loved Robin McKinley stories since I ran into them in middle school a bajillion years ago (heh), and I still love them, but I really feel that her writing has improved in a really discernable way. (Unlike some vampire story authors I could name. harumph.)

The timing and pacing are remarkable all on their own. I loved the early but relatively slow reveal of the reason for the book's name. And she does such a good job of making you interested in the myriad characters, even the difficult ones.

So... in short: Hurrah.