Booze and a Book: Sunshine in the Sunshine
Tara Avery
If you’ve known me any length of time at all, chances are I’ve recommended a Robin McKinley book to you. Most of them tend to fall in the young adult category, ranging from rewrites and expansions of fairy-tales (Beauty: a retelling of Beauty and the Beast is still one of my favorite books of all time), to fantasy novels, to collections of short stories. I love all of them. Seriously, go buy her books.
Several years ago, McKinley branched out. With her book Sunshine, she left young adult at the door and stepped firmly into adults-only-please territory. And who wouldn’t enjoy an adults-only-please beverage with an adults-only-please book? That’s what I thought.
I’m going lay it out on the table for you: one of the main characters in Sunshine is a vampire. Even though I’m not generally a huge fan of the vampire genre, I love this book, and I love this vampire. He’s not otherworldly-handsome. He smells weird. His skin looks like dried mushrooms (ew). He’s not Dracula or Angel or Spike or… sparkly. (Thank God.) He’s fascinating and compelling and because we never really get his whole back story, he’s mysterious in all the best ways—the ways that keep you thinking and wondering long after the last page is turned.
Sunshine sets up a world not so very different from our own with such masterful strokes the reader never finds themselves reaching to make sense of things—this world is the way it is, and you accept it. You enjoy it. And damn if you don’t get to the end of the book and wish to God there was more to read.
So, pour yourself a Vampire Cocktail (or a glass of blood-red wine), find yourself a warm patch of sunshine (it will make sense when you read the book), and immerse yourself in the story McKinley weaves. Vampires, magic, and cinnamon-rolls-as-big-as-your-head abound. Guaranteed to chill! (Also guaranteed to make you hungry… for baked goods, not blood. The title character is a bakery goddess.)
Vampire Cocktail:
1 oz vodka
½-¾ oz Chambord or Crème de Cassis
Cranberry juice
Shake all ingredients over ice, and pour into Collins glass. Garnish with maraschino cherry.