Black Sunshine

By: Karina Halle

Narrated by: Sofia Willingham

Length: 12 hrs and 45 mins

Publisher's summary

A week before Lenore Warwick's 21st birthday, she's kidnapped by the brooding and dangerous stranger with cold eyes and a lethal touch, who has been stalking her on San Francisco's fog-shrouded streets. Absolon "Solon" Stavig isn't your average criminal though. He's a centuries-old vampire who's caught between wanting to kill Lenore and wanting to save her.

You see Lenore, too, is a vampire. She just doesn't know it yet.

Taken by a pair of vampire slayers when she was just an infant, Lenore was raised never knowing her true nature. All Lenore knows is that she has (normal) parents who love her, that she's exceptionally smart, and she's squeamish around blood. But once she turns 21, she'll fully turn into a vampire, and Solon hopes he'll be there to guide her, opening her eyes to her deepest hunger...both sexual and otherwise.

But this turning can't be kept a secret. Soon both slayers and vampires are hunting Lenore, with only Solon and his unpredictable motley crew of vampires to save her.

Contains mature themes.

©2021 Karina Halle (P)2021 Tantor

Loved it!

I honestly loved this book. I can't wait for the next one to come out on Audible.

This was awesome!!

I loved this! I enjoyed the take on vampires, witches and vampire/witches. It wasn’t very long, but was extremely romantic. The characters were interesting, with their many layers. Some were still un-layered, and I’m wondering if we’ll see more of them in book two.

The narrator did a great job on this! It was my first time listening to Sofia Willingham, and I’m very impressed!!

Salon and Lenore make for 5*

Beautiful story. My only critique is wishing for a male narrator and more Salon POV. it is an interesting take on the world of vampires, and I like their dynamic. Karina, my favorite book of yours and narration is My Life in Shambles. My first book of yours is Love in English. I like many of them. Now I purchased this second book as well as Wolf's book. Bring on the audio for this series please. I bought Blood Orange and that next book. I'm excited to read them (and hoping for more audibles.. especially with male narrators too. Thank you!

Needs a different person reading the book

Was difficult to keep listening because the person reading is totally wrong for the part. Her voice doesn't have the right emotions for her part. It's like she's just reading it and not feeling the story

Loved the story, didn’t love the narrator

Karina Halle writes a lot of dark retellings and part of me wanders if this was Twilight inspired. Either way, as far as vampire romance books go, I really enjoyed it. Let’s break it down

✔️witches and vampires
✔️🌶️🌶️🌶️
✔️stalker romance
✔️dark romance vibes with stalking and kidnapping but completely consensual spice
✔️dual feeding
✔️curvy FMC
✔️possessive with touch her and 💀
✔️found family
✔️morally grey villainous MMC

Brief Synopsis:
Lenore starts out in the story as a 20 year old college student who starts experiencing some weird phenomenons close to her 21st birthday. She gets the sense that someone has been watching her and starts hearing whispers- unsure if it’s all just in her head. I really don’t think I can say much more other than the fact that the weird stuff has to do with some witchy and vampire stuff, things get dark and spicy, and all the family secrets start to unravel.


I did listen to this on audible and did not care for the narrator. I did jump back and forth between my kindle app and the audio book and I enjoyed it better when I read it from kindle. The narrator has an ASMR whispery voice that just made me want to fall asleep. Which is nice sometimes, but there were some like high stakes action packed type scenes that really didn’t fit.

Paranormal Romance

✨”I'm not going to be gentle," he says hoarsely, breathing hard...

"I don't want you to be gentle," I say, digging my nails into his back. "I want to feel everything you have for me."

🖤I absolutely loved Black Sunshine when I read it last year, and look forward to revisiting this unique world by Karina Halle in my audio re-read.

✨I have noticed lately that audio re-reads are an easy and wonderfully enjoyable option for me, particularly during times of high stress, and when managing responsibilities that prevent me from physically sitting with a book.

🖤 I highly recommend Black Sunshine and look forward to updating my review on this story as well as The Blood Is Love after I have read it.

I kind of did not want to finish this book

This book is so cringe, I only read it because it was part of my book club. The idea of the world is pretty neat, but it's poorly executed. I don't know, this was just so poorly written it's like middle schooler fanfiction of Twilight from back in the day it's just not good.

Liked The Narrators Voice, And Love a good vamp romamce

I really enjoyed the narrators voice! I think he she did great.

The story was good to be as well, but I a sucker for a Spicy Vampy Romance. Especially the morally grey.

If you can get past the narrator, then it’s a good story.

The storyline was entertaining and fast paced but my goodness the narrators mush mouth and reading statements with inflections of it being a question was distracting and tough to ignore.

The fact that I am not the target audience but became invested in the character says another for the writer.

First person narratives are not my favorite. I would have liked to know why Lenora was loved... what was loveable about her?