Book Review: Sunshine, by Robin McKinley

One night Rae feels like she needs to get away from everyone, including her family and boyfriend, and have some space to think, so she goes out for a drive by the lake. There she is kidnapped by a group of vampires. They take her to a heavily guarded house by the lake and put her in a room with another vampire, who is chained to the wall, yet able to reach her. Rae is clearly meant to be food, so she is surprised when the vampire doesn't devour her immediately, and instead asks her to talk to him. But he isn't like other vampires, and, it turns out, Rae isn't like other humans either.

 

Sunshine is a very strange book to review. I enjoyed it immensely but was also really annoyed by it! The plot is quite an unusual one as the bulk of the story takes place after Rae escapes the vampires and explores the effect this has on her life. Though she claims that she can't remember anything, and tries to convince herself that life will continue as normal, supernatural law enforcement officials that she has known all her life start turning their attention to her, eager to find out what happened that night. Her mother starts leaving protection charms around. And the vampire that she was held prisoner with hasn't disappeared either.

There's a lot of detail in this book. Rae goes off on a lot of tangents, which some readers don't like, but I loved it. I really enjoyed all the different elements that were brought into the story. The world building and characterisation was excellent and I was desperate to find out what Rae would do and what would be revealed about each character in the end.

And then it just stops.

And not in the first-book-in-a-series cliffhanger kind of way.

At The End of the story, almost nothing has been explained, let alone resolved. The one major relationship has developed, but that's it.

It's extremely frustrating. It seems like there is so much interesting material left to explore, but to the author, the most interesting part, that relationship, has developed, so that's the end of the book. To her it's a love story, but to me, it could have been a lot of other things as well. It could have been an epic about the end of the world. It could have been the best urban fantasy series I'd ever had the privilege of reading.

I respect the right of the author, who is extremely talented, to tell the story she wants to tell. But at the same time I can emphasise with all those people who find Sunshine annoyingly long-winded. I loved the detail, but when most of it turns out to have no bearing on the ending, it seems unnecessary. 

Would I recommend Sunshine? Yes, if you love urban fantasy and like vampires to be properly terrifying, and if you want to see some really interesting ideas, or if you enjoy reading about unusual romantic relationships. But if you like to have mysteries explained, don't get your hopes up about the ending.

I would more broadly recommend Robin McKinley's Spindle's End, which is also full of interesting characters but has a much tighter ending. I've also read Beauty, which is extremely popular, but I didn't like it as much as Spindle's End.

Book Review: Dead Witch Walking, by Kim Harrison

I didn’t actually know much about the plot of this book before I read it. I’d heard a few people saying that they liked the author’s work, and I’d listened to the episode of I Should Be Writing that featured an interview with her. When I picked it up to read last month, after getting through all my BISP month books, I did, what for me, is an unusual thing. I looked at the blurb.

Instantly I remembered why it had lurked on my TBR pile for more than a year. The blurb is appalling. I don’t know what it’s like on the UK edition, but I’ve got the US/CAN edition, and it tells you the protagonists name, that she’s a bounty hunter and witch, the name of the place where she lives, and that there are vampires there. It doesn’t tell you anything about the plot, or even about the world really. Usually when I write my little plot introductions for reviews, I get a bit nervous about doing the book the proper amount of justice, but this time I am confident, because the blurb set the standard so low!

Dead Witch Walking is set in an alternate universe, where, shortly after the discovery of DNA, a virus was bioengineered that decimated the human population. Previously humans had massively outnumbered all the supernatural creatures – or Inderlanders – but now the numbers are a lot closer to even. Rachel Morgan is one such Inderlander, working for their branch of the police, until she gets sick of getting all the worst jobs. One night she decides to quit, and to her surprise, successful living vampire Ivy and pixy Jenks offer to work with her. Their boss wouldn’t mind Rachel leaving, he’s wanted rid of her for a while, but when he finds out that Ivy is leaving with her, he puts a price on Rachel’s head. Hence the title, Dead Witch Walking. Rachel and her new partners have to find a way to work together to get Inderlander Security to call off the assassins before Rachel runs out of time.

I enjoyed Dead Witch Walking and I read it relatively quickly. I really liked the world in which it was set, however, there was something missing. A really strong protagonist. I’ve read several times that if writers are struggling to decide which character in their story should be the first person narrator, they should pick the one that is the most interesting. I just didn’t feel like Rachel was the most interesting character in the story, quite the opposite, in fact. I was really intrigued by Ivy and her relationship with her parents and other vampires, and by Jenks, his wife and many children. Rachel just didn’t seem that exciting by comparison, perhaps her life is just too straightforward, but I wondered whether the author was deliberately holding back information about Rachel, possibly to put it into later books. There was a lot that wasn’t really explained, like her relationship with her mother. I also couldn’t understand why Rachel was so impulsive, and why she would get herself into really risky situations without any sort of plan to escape them.

I have read on Goodreads and other websites that this series does get better, some people have even said that it’s worth persevering because the later books are amazing. I’m willing to give this series a couple more books to improve, so willing I’ve already got the second, The Good, The Bad and The Undead, on my TBR!

Book Review: Bite, by Laurell K. Hamilton, Charlaine Harris, MaryJanice Davidson, Angela Knight, and Vickie Taylor

Bite is a collection of supernatural romance stories, all featuring vampires. There is a range of writers featured, from the most famous and popular (Laurell K. Hamilton) to the virtually unknown (Vickie Taylor, who had only published mainstream romance before this).

The first story, 'The Girl Who Was Infatuated With Death', by Laurell K. Hamilton, is set in her Anita Blake universe and narrated by Anita. It takes place between Blue Moon and Obsidian Butterfly. I have read most of this series so I was already familiar with some of the characters. In this story, a woman comes to see Anita at work because her daughter is planning to become a vampire. The girl is seventeen and has bone cancer in both legs. Her mother wants Anita to find her daughter before she is turned. But this assignment means that Anita has to go pay a visit to one of the boyfriends she is avoiding, Jean-Claude, vampire Master of the City.

I enjoyed this story as I enjoyed all Laurell K. Hamilton's earlier Anita Blake novels, although the human-wanting-to-escape-mortality-by-becoming-a-vampire plot is getting a bit overdone. I did think the ending was quite rushed, and I've always found Jean-Claude to be a pretty cheesy character - French accent and silk boxers? No thanks!

'One Word Answer' is the second story. It's by Charlaine Harris and features Sookie Stackhouse and some other characters from the Southern Vampire Mysteries series. One evening, a limousine pulls up outside Sookie's home, and a Mr Cataliades gets out, to tell Sookie that her cousin Hadley is dead - and that she used to be a vampire. I hadn't read any of Charlaine Harris' writing before this, and I was intrigued by this story, but not enough to run out and buy "Dead Until Dark" immediately, although I look forward to reading it at some point in the future. It seemed to have only slight erotic undertones so I wasn't sure how it fitted in with the rest of the stories, which are more explicit, but the characters were interesting.

The third story is by MaryJanice Davidson, and is called 'Biting In Plain Sight'. Sophie Tourneau is a vampire and a vet - everyone in her small town knows she is a vampire, but they accept it and it is not discussed. Liam is 38 and has been attracted to her forever, regularly pretending his cats are sick just so he can see her. He finally decides to make his move and invites her into his home for a drink after she has overseen his cat having kittens, but whilst there a news report comes on the television. There have been several recent deaths of teenage girls, officially suicides, but their parents believe they were killed. Sophie decides to investigate, and Liam insists on coming along. I enjoyed this story the most. I thought the vampire characters were the least conventional, and although, having not read any of the novels in the Undead series, I did not understand a lot of what was going on when Sophie and Liam went to see Queen Betsy, it worked better as a short story in my opinion than anything else in this collection. The blossoming romance between Sophie and Liam was sweet and well-developed.

Fourth in this collection is 'Galahad', by Angela Knight. This story was weird. It's the King Arthur/Knights of the Round Table legend - if all the men were vampires, and all the women were witches. Caroline was an English teacher until she slept with a vampire and her witch - Majae - powers were released. Now she suffers from painful visions, but can do pretty much anything with magic. One day she has a vision which leads her to meet Sir Galahad, and together they attempt to save the world by defeating evil vampires and witches. I could have got along with the premise if it wasn't for the jarring modern tone of the story. Considering that King Arthur et al originated in ancient England, there were an awful lot of Americanisms, and there was very little historical atmosphere. The rules of magic were never explained - Caroline can do almost anything she wants whenever she wants, and the whole thing seemed a little too much to me like an excuse for sex scenes. Lots and lots of sex scenes. Cringeworthy sex scenes. There are puns. Bad lines. More puns. If I keep this book, it will be because the many cheesy lines in this story are great to read out with friends and cringe over! Some people may be into really cheesy innuendo...but I'm not!

The final story is 'Blood Lust' by Vickie Taylor. This story is a bit more original than the title suggests. Daniel has just finished his project of creating synthetic blood, when Garth, the man who sponsored his research beats him up and takes the only copy of the formula, and his home, lab, and money away. Even worse, he has turned Daniel's girlfriend, Sue Ellen, into a vampire. When Daniel recovers he decides that they only way to have his revenge is to become a vampire himself, so that he can fight Garth and kill Sue Ellen to save her living a life she would not have wanted. Daniel tracks down Déadre, a lonely female vampire, and attempts to persuade her to help him. Unfortunately, the romance was unrealistic - Daniel and Déadre fall in 'love' within a couple of hours. The twist was not that hard to anticipate, but as a short story, it was more self-contained than the others.

If you are a reader of supernatural romance and you have never read any of these authors before, reading Bite is a good way to test them out, and if you are a real fan of any of these authors you will probably consider this book a must-read. I would also recommend it to anyone who wants a good giggle at the bad puns in 'Galahad'. Regular short story readers, however, would probably be unsatisfied by these stories, which, apart from 'Blood Lust', are not standalone short stories. I would describe this book as a sampler for the writers and their fictional worlds, as most of the pieces are not true short stories but excerpts.

As most of these stories feature "adult content", I wouldn't recommend this book for younger urban fantasy/horror fans, but there are several more age-appropriate short story collections out now, for example, the "from Hell" books.

Book Review: Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Afterimage, by Pierce Askegren

This is a tie-in novel for the TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer, published after the series finished but set in early season 2 whilst Cordelia and Xander are just starting to go out.

The Sunnydale Drive-In has been closed for decades but has recently been refurbished and is going to be opened with a special all-night multiple-bill. Xander has got himself a job handing out flyers for this event, but none of his friends are interested in going. He ends up convincing Jonathan to go with him and they have a good night, but Jonathan isn't able to stay conscious long enough to get home, and Xander ends up half-carrying him to his front door. The next morning, he won't wake up and many other Sunnydale residents are similarly stricken.

Buffy and Angel are out on patrol when they start getting attacked by demons who won't stay solid enough to be hit, but who can still fight them. All this has something to do with the mysterious and charismatic new owner of the Drive-In, Mr Balsamo, and the Scoobies need to find out what before everyone ends up asleep.

The one thing that really annoyed me about this novel is that in it, Willow has high-speed optic fibre broadband in her house. This novel is set during season 2 of Buffy, which means it's supposed to be taking place in 1997. Most people don't have that kind of broadband now, over ten years later! In 1997 you got mediocre dial-up or nothing.

Technological anachronisms aside, this was an okay read, enjoyable but nothing special and although the concept was pretty original, there just weren't the twists and turns that you get in a really good plot. The final fight scene seemed too short. Giles and Buffy both kept telling Willow not to use magic when she suggested she could try using magic for something, which makes sense in season 6 and 7 but not in season 2. However, the characters were pretty well depicted, particularly Xander, he's really the focus of this book which made a nice change.

I'd recommend it to Buffy fans who want a quick read but it's not unmissable by any means, there have been better Buffy novels written and the graphic novel stories are the best non-tv material in my opinion. I probably won't read it again. The book is quite small in size so it can fit in your bag easily, which would be good for travelling.

Book Review: Tall, Dark and Dead, by Tate Hallaway

This book got better as I got more into it, although I find the chick-litty cover quite jarring with the content of the book! (Killing and pale yellow? REALLY?) I did find it to be too heavy on the romance and too light on the action for my tastes, although it had some nice humorous moments. One thing that I found inadvertently hilarious was that Garnet's ex-boyfriend Daniel Parrish and new boyfriend Sebastian Von Traum both had English accents. It's such a cliche for American romantic novels to star men with English accents, considering the author got the humour right with religion/subculture-tester-William, she could have noticed and mocked this cliche too for good measure!

The author has done her research into Wiccan rituals and astrology, which gives Garnet, the main character, authenticity. However, Garnet likes to pretend she knows things about vampires that she doesn't, and so a lot of questions I had about the way the vampires in the world of the book work went unanswered. The status of gods in the story was never clear either. Wiccans generally believe that the gods they invoke are not actual individual beings, but facets of a supreme power, but Garnet has a goddess, Lilith, partially and sometimes entirely possessing her. Catholic magic co-exists alongside Wiccan magic, but the author never explains how this is possible. I prefer Laurell K. Hamilton's Anita Blake series for world creation and action, but this wasn't a bad stab at the genre.