Book Review: A Bad Day for Sunshine by Darynda Jones

A Bad Day for Sunshine

by Darynda Jones

I’ve been a long-time fan of the Charley Davidson urban fantasy series by Darynda Jones. Sadly, it has come to a close, so I was very excited to learn she was releasing a new series, based around a Sheriff named Sunshine Vicram. The first book is A Bad Day for Sunshine.

Jones returns to the stomping ground she knows best for the setting, New Mexico, with coffee and Tex-Mex food to make us salivate, as well as gorgeous love interests for our heroine.

Sunshine has won an election she never even entered, to become sheriff of Del Sol, New Mexico. She knows her mother and father had something to do with it, but she can’t get anyone to tell her exactly how they managed it.

But Sunshine has accepted the outcome of the election and returned to Del Sol for the soul purpose of finding out who abducted her and held her for ransom when she was seventeen. She doesn’t remember much of what transpired at all, has no idea who kidnapped her, or how she became pregnant during that time. And her daughter, Auri, doesn’t know that she is the product of a probable rape.

The beginning of this story is strangely humorous and lighthearted for the darkness of the subject matter. It seemed incongruous at times, but is more spread out as the story goes on. More immediate and dire events unfold as one teen girl and one young man go missing, though we are unsure what their connection is for some time.

It is a very fast-paced book with all of the distant angst for a seemingly unavailable love interest that we are used to in Jones’ books. It's a very contemporary book in that there is no beating around the bush about the fact that a single woman in her early thirties would find certain men sexually attractive. 

Sunshine is also very matter-of-fact with her fourteen-year-old daughter, Auri, about her expectation that her daughter not engage in any such pursuits.

On thing that I really loved in this book is Auri’s voice. Her intelligence and humor, her infatuation with a boy in her new school, are deeply relatable to anyone who remembers their teen years. The interplay between mom and daughter is sweet and delightful.

Sunshine's love interest is very attractive, though I felt the plot wore a little thin where he was concerned, because he makes assumptions about her motives and she ignores things that he does, that so clearly signal a vested interest. It seems clear that this will be a series and I hope any twists in the plot will rise above and surprise me.

The plot is twisty and fast-paced enough to keep things interesting, but the tone is light enough to keep the dark events from becoming too dark. I read this one in two days and intend to go back and read it again now. I would give it a solid 4.5 out of 5.