Rae “Sunshine” Seddon, a baker at a coffee shop, wanders from relative safety and is trapped by vampires. She is thrown into a room with a chained and starving vampire, Constantine, who is mocked and tortured on the orders of her master. Rae rediscovers her magical talent and frees both herself and her new partner. That’s just the beginning, because Bo, Constantine’s archenemy, won’t give up until he destroys them both.

In the future, there is something called “Voodoo Wars”, a conflict between humanity and the “Others” (demons, shapeshifters, vampires – vampires are the strongest and the main problem). Many humans die in that conflict, and the survivors fight to survive while the powerful vampires try to rule the world.

One result of this conflict is that “bad spots” – places where black magic thrives – appear more and more frequently, reducing the space uninhabitable for humans and making it even more difficult for humans to survive. As one of the characters says, “Others are winning”, they just can’t say that openly to the general human population.

This world isn’t what a reader would normally expect of a place populated by shapeshifters and vampires, and that’s where McKinley’s humor comes in. For example, the most common shapeshifters are not werewolves, but chickenmen, which makes the shapeshifters unwilling to admit what they are. As for vampires, they are not sexy, they are physically repulsive to humans. While vampires have so much control over their bodies that they “always can,” Rae asks, “Who would want a boyfriend with a constant boner?”

What I found most compelling in this novel was the relationship between Rae and Constantine. Rae is sympathetic to Constantine’s position from the start, because “no one likes thugs”, and Constantine is not your usual vampire killer. They’re puzzled by each other, Rae by a vampire who doesn’t act like a monster but like a nice being, and Constantine by having a human ally he needs to protect, something he’s not used to.

Their relationship grows, often to his perplexity. Even though Constantine still looks ugly to Rae (we don’t know what Rae looks like to him), sexual tension develops between them, and it’s quite believable. They continue to protect and help each other, each with strengths and weaknesses, and their friendship grows, a friendship that doesn’t end when the enemy is defeated, and the reader wonders what will happen between them next.

Cleverly written, humorous, at times akin to a fairy tale, Sunshine is a beautiful novel that breaks away from stereotypes and builds its own world and characters. Despite many readers asking for it, the author has yet to write a sequel, but one can always hope.