First, Thank you to NetGalley, St Martin's Press for providing A Bad Day for Sunshine in exchange for my honest review.
I LOVE THIS BOOK, and i loved all of Darynda's books. It was everything i expected and more cant wait until the next book.

Sunshine Vicram has returned home and it’s her first day on the job as the sheriff. As far as first days go it’s a pretty epically bad one. It’s a smallish community so she’s expecting the usual stuff but her first day starts out with a BANG!


I have loved this author since her Charley Davidson series. She made me laugh and cry through the entire series. So when I found out she had a new book out going a totally different direction I was excited to check it out.

This new series doesn’t disappoint and I was laughing out loud through the whole thing. The plot was great and kept me guessing all the way until the big reveal. I’ve fallen in love with these new characters of hers and am super excited to see them in follow up books. This book was action packed but still had a lot of feelings.

I will be recommending this book to all my friends who love the crime thriller and mystery books. I think my friends who love Karin Slaughter will flip for this new series!

Was not what I expected. Despite a promising premise, I couldn't finish it -- the narrative was too much like Young Adult fiction, with a simplistic sentence structure and an overly emotional protagonist.

Sunshine is the new sheriff of the community where she grew up in New Mexico, and challenges occur beginning on her very first day of work. Her daughter, Auri, does her best to fit in socially in her new school, but she is accused of something she didn't do before her semester even begins.

The story weaves in and out between Sunshine's work, and Auri's contributions to her mom's investigations. The events are not quite believable, and when the book ends, the reader is left wondering just exactly what transpired.

This book had the potential to be a fun page-turner, but because it was just way too wordy, it ended up for me being a dreaded job to get through. If the text could be cut back by maybe 30%, A Bad Day for Sunshine might earn a few more stars.

A BAD DAY FOR SUNSHINE By Darynda Jones

I love this one! I know that Darynda Jones has another hit on her hands with this. Sheriff Sunshine Vicram is reminiscent of Charley Davidson and her attitude with the witty banter. Sunshine has returned to Del Sol New Mexico to take over the sheriff’s position in her home town. She has her daughter and parents with her. Lots of craziness ensues and mysteries. This is definitely a 5 star read.

Thank you, Net Galley, for a copy of this book for an honest review. First off, I have read another series by Darynda Jones, the author and I enjoyed it very much. I was looking forward to this new series. Sunshine is detective and is elected as Sheriff in her hometown without her knowledge. She has a young daughter Auri. Sunshine is expecting a slow time but there are a lot of crimes all happening at once, it is alluded to that something happened to Sunshine as a young girl, but everything was so mysterious
I must say I did not care for the book, It had too many snarky comments, crimes to be solved and no one solving them. Sunshine just seemed to wander around talking about how she got the job. Things went on and on, then wrapped up quickly at the end, mostly.
I did enjoy the different viewpoints - Auri the daughter and Sunshine. I like a book where we hear different points of view. I enjoyed Levi. This is the first on in the series and Ms. Jones books are so good I expect the next one will be better, and we will have a great new series.

What do you do when you win an election without trying. So begins the saga of Sunshine, a newly minted sheriff inDel Sol, New Mexico. An unusual homecoming to be sure. A place of mystical , unexplained quirky characters and events. The book club is a excuse to gather and drink and gossip for older women, who have never lost pace with the real world and have more than a passing eye to the events of the day. Sun has a daughter ,the result of a kidnapping who Sunshine loves and protects with every fiber of her being. Issa kidnapping that starts Sun’s first day on the job.We have a fully realized hero in Ravinder,local moonshiner turned honest businessman,who happens to be the best tracker around. It doesn’t hurt that he could stop an influencer in her tracks. The search for the victim uncovers truths long held by Sunshine only to be key to the truth we hope not to see. Happy reading

A Bad day for Sunshine was a very fun read. This book was funny, saucy, and a little sad. These characters are different from Darynda’s Charley books, but still very much had the feel of a Charley book.
While reading it felt like I was missed the first book of that series, even though this is the first book of the series. Sunshine and Auri kept alluding to events in the past in such a way that it felt like everyone should know and understand the motivations that went with it while the reader was left in the dark. Aside from parts reading like an inside joke I wasn’t apart of, the story sucked me in and I eagerly await more books in this series.

This was a story that I was very glad that I persevered through the first few chapters, as I wound up really enjoying it more than I thought I would.

Pro's:
Well written. (This is the main reason I continued with the story).
Lots of surprises. (Good one's and bad one's)
A lot of humor that helps break the more stressful situations.

Con's:
The thirty something year old sheriff (who is the main character) is more hormonal than her teenage daughter. Every new male character introduced had her thinking about possible relationships.

The settings and people would change from one sentence to the next. Sometimes in the middle of a paragraph. IE: Auri would be in a conversation/situation in a classroom, the next sentence would be Sun in the middle of a forrest looking for a missing person. This is extremely distracting and confusing as I am still following the previous train of thought. And this happens multiple times in the story.

All in all it was an enjoyable story, and I would recommend it to others. I would also give an expectation of what to expect.

Darynda has done it again! I read this book in lieu of sleep and at any break I caught at work. Aaaaand then I re-read it ... the official release isn’t for months and I’m already desperate for the next installment.
There’s a lot going on in this book. But I enjoyed that. I think it helped me get to know Sunshine, Auri, and their circle of friends. I can’t wait to get to know them all better.
It was some of the best “feelings” from Charley Davidson meets early Stephanie Plum - two series I’ve read and reread.
I’ll update this review when we get to release date with more details and possible spoilers. Suffice it to say, this new series isn’t to be missed! Smart, funny and touching.

A Story of Love, Hate, and Justice

Sunshine Vicram is the new sheriff of Del Sol, New Mexico. She didn’t exactly run for the office, her parents entered her name in the race and she was elected before she knew the election was even taking place. But, it’s good to be home, and the job will be easy this sleepy little town. Then her first day in office turns into a disaster. It all starts with a plateful of muffins, but you can read about that later. Her daughter runs into bullies in the high school, a chicken sparks a feud between neighbors, and a young girl is kidnapped, igniting national attention and bringing her in contact with her secret love from long ago. Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to come back home after all.

This is by far one of the best novels I’ve ever read. So much more than a mystery, it’s the only book I’ve ever finished reading and then went back to page 1 to read it all over again. Right away, not days or hours, but right away. The characters come to life on the pages and they are portrayed in a way that I laughed with them, cried with them, and felt the love and heartbreak with them. Darynda Jones has an outstanding ability to write emotions into her characters that surpasses most authors. I highly recommend A Bad Day For Sunshine, and I’m anxiously looking forward to the next novel in the Sunshine Vicram series.

Thank you, NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for a free book in exchange for my honest review.

I’m impressed with how the story slowly unfolded, just tickling my interest, letting me get to know the characters, and making me chuckle with their conversations. Made me feel like I was there. And there was also that special moment with mother and daughter that made my heart ache along with them. By the end of the book, they have totally engaged my interest that I really want to know what happens next.

While I hadn't read Ms. Jones before, I am very aware of her popular Charley Davidson series, and even have books one and twelve of that series in my TBR. So when an email showed up from Netgalley about this book, the first in a new series, being available, I jumped on it.

It's one of those books that is filled with quirky characters and outlandish situations. Starting with Sunshine becoming the sheriff of her home town after winning an election that she had not even entered. Her friend and coworker, Quincy, tells her she killed it at a the debate. How...? Sunshine never does find out how her parents managed to get her elected behind her back, but she is still glad of the opportunity to move back to her home town, if only to investigate her own abduction when she was seventeen, of which she has very little memory, and the perpetrator was never caught.

Much of the dialogue was quite amusing, with quips being tossed back and forth between the characters like a volleyball, while Sunshine and her deputies race against the clock to find a missing teenager who had premonitions of her own abduction and murder for years. I sometimes got a little confused as something would come up from Sun's past. For instance, one minute her childhood rival and bully Hailey is snarling insults at her, and the next they're hugging in a coffee shop storeroom, followed by a short info dump to explain their situation, although I'm still not completely clear on why the two women have to pretend to hate each other when anyone else is around. Plus there was just soooo much going on, like dozens of tiny little side plots. Despite that, I like the author's writing and the story was engaging for the most part. And when Sunshine and her daughter finally had a heart to heart, no more secrets, talk about what happened to Sunshine when she was seventeen, I cried right along with them.

While Sunshine is apparently surrounded by handsome burly men, Levi of course stood out from the others. An enigma, who I'm sure we'll learn more about as the series progresses. I have some theories about him, and I loved the conversation between them when she went to his house to thank him for something and ended up standing beside his bed interrupting his nap to talk to him.

If this review comes across as my feeling a bit ambivalent about the book, I guess I am a little, but the bottom line is I did get quite caught up and raced through the last quarter or so, and I look forward to the next book. And definitely need to get a start on the Charley Davidson books.

Sunshine Vicram and her daughter Aurelia have returned to Del Sol, New Mexico after her adoring yet meddlesome parents put Sunshine's name on the ballot for sheriff and she won. Her first day starts with a flasher, a stolen rooster, a missing teenage girl and an escaped convict. Auri's first day at school isn't much better. The only things going their way is the presence of Levi Ravinder an old wished-for flame, a sexy U.S. Marshall, and a handsome classmate of Auri's who seems interested. Fast moving, clever and at times out-right funny story that is not to be missed.

This is a really good read that will keep you riveted to your seat as the story unfolds. The mystery is well written and will keep you guessing until the end. The added elements of additional unsolved crimes keep you guessing and wanting to find out who dunnit, especially the mystery of Sunshine’s past. I highly recommend this book to all mystery lovers.

A thrilling, riveting page turner. The quirky secondary characters along with the amazing main characters make this a remarkable read. I couldn’t put this book down but I didn’t want it to end. Please tell me there will be more books with these characters!

Quirky, funny, with enough mystery to keep you guessing. While I figured out who did it in the main mystery, the motive kept me guessing. Sun, Quincy, Auri, Cruz, Hailey and Levi were all fun characters and their interactions kept me coming back for more. I can’t wait to see how Sun and Levi’s relationship evolves in the next book.


Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC.

I just finished A Bad Day for Sunshine by Darynda Jones. Absolutely loved this book. It’s about Sunshine Vicram, newly elected sheriff of Del Sol NM. Her election was somehow manipulated by her parents but she accepted anyway. She has a
very precocious 14 year-old daughter who was conceived during a kidnapping and rape. Her first week on the job is filled with problems. Can’t wait for the next book in this series! Thank you @Netgalley for giving me the chance to read this book.

A Bad Day for Sunshine is the spit fire book about a female sheriff in Del a Sol, New Mexico.
With dizzying plots and twists a mile a minute.
Excellent read.

This is the first time I've read one of Darynda Jones' book and it won't be the last. This book was so thrilling I could not put it down. I was totally surprised who kidnapped SybiI but then things started falling into place. I do wish things had been settled between Sunshine and Levi. I would recommend this book to likes to be on the edge of their seats.