Book Review: Sunshine, by Robin McKinley

He's dark, dangerous, and undead. She's a ditzy human girl. You missed the crest of that wave by this much, Robin McKinley.

Berkley Books, 2003, 389 pages

There are places in the world where darkness rules, where it's unwise to walk. Sunshine knew that. But there hadn't been any trouble out at the lake for years, and she needed a place to be alone for a while. Unfortunately, she wasn't alone. She never heard them coming. Of course you don't, when they're vampires.

They took her clothes and sneakers. They dressed her in a long red gown. And they shackled her to the wall of an abandoned mansion-within easy reach of a figure stirring in the moonlight.

She knows that he is a vampire. She knows that she's to be his dinner and that when he is finished with her, she will be dead. Yet, as dawn breaks, she finds that he has not attempted to harm her. And now it is he who needs her to help him survive the day.

( Sort of an anti-Twilight. )

Verdict: Sunshine is a good story, decently well-written, that I probably wouldn't have started if I'd known beforehand that one of the vampires ends up as a love interest. So yay for subverting expectations. That said, while McKinley's fans have apparently been nagging her for years to write a sequel, I wasn't that invested in the world or the characters, so "better than Twilight" is about the most damnably faint praise I can give it.

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