Sunshine (2003)

Robin McKinley weaves a rich, sensory culinary landscape where human baking stands in stark defiance of predatory death. Sunshine is an accomplished baker whose meticulous kitchen creations, from cinnamon rolls to bittersweet chocolate cakes, anchor her humanity. When chained in an abandoned ballroom alongside Constantine, a starving vampire, the two must negotiate mutual survival without romanticising his lethal nature. The book treats eating both as everyday emotional sanctuary and as cold, monstrous compulsion, contrasting the comforting warmth of flour and butter with the predatory abyss of pure carnivorous hunger.