Daphne Redgrave and Cinnamon Cheung couldn’t be less alike. Daphne is a charming, chaotic serial monogamist, prone to outlandish displays of affection and equally outlandish turnaround times on relationships. An emotionally reserved therapist, Cinnamon hasn’t been on a date since her last serious relationship ended seven years ago. But they are both daughters of powerful family businesses, so when they meet by chance at a party, their burgeoning romance is dogged by layers of suspicion.
Jem Spears’s debut novel, STARLIGHT AND CINNAMON hits with a satisfying confidence in both vision and execution. Readers will recognize the structure here—the meet-cute, the family tension, the third-act friction between the lovers—as it unfolds in energetic but well-paced beats. Although these beats are apparent (even predictable), they’re given an extra layer of thematic resonance with the text’s choice of setting: tech-central San Francisco in the wake of the Gamergate scandal, when online harassment of women exploded in intensity. That allows the novel some room to maneuver around issues of trust, security, and hope—issues equally powerful in the protagonists’ romantic relationship, social lives, and professional lives.
As would be expected for a modern queer romance where one protagonist is a therapist, the text is literate in social justice. STARLIGHT AND CINNAMON is most effective in its thoughtful, delicate considerations of privilege. Both protagonists enjoy immense privilege—they come from rich technocrat families, even if they don’t work for the family business—but they also know enough to acknowledge it, as well as the matrix of intersectionality between them (Daphne is white; Cinnamon is not). As women and queer people, the protagonists are inspired to actively fight entrenched power structures, rather than passively benefit from them. The story is sensitive and strong in laying out this spectrum of privilege, as well as in placing all of its characters (most sympathetic, some unquestionably not) somewhere within it.
Aside from all this, however, STARLIGHT AND CINNAMON is just fun to read. The prose has an eye for beauty. The day does not merely dawn on San Francisco; the city “[flirts] with the sunrise, the periwinkle heavens retracting toward the west like an eyelid opening on the day.” As Daphne moves through a frenetic queer costume ball, her “dark dress [blooms] behind her like ink dropped in a water glass.” The dialogue, meanwhile, feels naturalistic and sharp. Daphne and Cinnamon’s flirty text exchanges are particularly charming; so is Daphne’s Kiwi friend, Rin, who teasingly admonishes Daphne and her sister as “absolute muppets” and “utter shoeboxes.” That’s to say nothing of the loving descriptions of food (Cinnamon is a stress baker), or the few but committed spicy scenes where the tension finally breaks.
Romantic, thrilling, and thematically rich, STARLIGHT AND CINNAMON is a pleasure for the reader and a victory for the author.
Jem Spears’s STARLIGHT AND CINNAMON is a deeply romantic, surprisingly complex, and wildly successful debut.
~ Dan Accardi for IndieReader