Indie Book Review: Starlight and Cinnamon

Book Details

Title: Starlight and Cinnamon
Author: Jem Spears
Genre(s): Contemporary Romance, Lesbian Fiction
Age: Adult
Date Published: September 9th, 2025
Page Count: 361
Goodreads Rating: 4.33⭐
Series: International Love and Misadventure #1

Vibes:
Sugar and spice and everything nice, with a monkey

Despite her demanding and mysterious job, Daphne Redgrave devotes an appropriate amount of time and effort into attracting whoever could be her next girlfriend. Who hasn’t broken into a secret laboratory to steal a monkey in the hopes of impressing a girl they’ve never met? And if it doesn’t work out, she knows there’ll always be someone else for her—until she meets Cinnamon.

Cinnamon Cheung has spent an appropriate amount of time convincing herself that she doesn’t want a girlfriend. For seven years, she’s been perfectly happy with her nerdy friends, nosy family, successful career as a therapist, and the possibly misguided hobby of trying to unmask which powerful techbro has been making her clients’ lives hell. She’s told herself she’s content, and she almost believes it, until Daphne crashes into her life.

Now that they know the other exists, the lies they tell themselves to stay alone begin to lose their hold. As Daphne and Cinnamon try to navigate what they could mean to each other, their dangerous projects align, putting everything in jeopardy. And it’ll take a lot more than stealing a monkey or ignoring the problem to get through it with their relationship, careers, and lives intact.

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My Rating

4 stars

I thoroughly enjoyed this! I love the writing and Daphne is such a fun character. The banter throughout the book keeps it lighthearted and fun. I like the texts back and forth as well. The spice between Cinnamon and Daphne was nice, and I really like their connection. I like that both of them have people protecting them, and I never liked Ling-Yi anyways!! The monkey heist at the beginning and not being able to let the monkey thing go also cracked me up throughout the book. Overall it was heartwarming, fun and a very fitting read for pride month 🙂

"You're my person."

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