When Sparks Fly (Spark House #1)
Helena Hunting
Synopsis: Running the Spark House, a hotel/event space that has been in her family for years, has been Avery Spark’s lifelong dream. After years of working hard and making personal sacrifices, Avery and her two younger sisters have turned the Spark House into the premier destination in Colorado Springs. Avery is living her best life—she works with her sisters and loves every minute of it, she has a great group of friends, and she lives in a fantastic condo with her best friend Declan. She might not have any love in her life, but she’s happy.
But everything comes to a screeching halt when Avery is in a car accident, leaving her immobile for weeks. After nearly losing Avery, Declan insists that he will be the one to take care of her while she recovers. However, as Declan becomes Avery’s caretaker, lines begin to blur.
Avery and Declan have been best friends since college and always had an attraction to one another, but when she ended up dating his best friend, Sam, they successfully stamped down any feelings they may have ever had for one another. Now, as Declan and Avery spend more time together, they each begin to wonder what would’ve happened if she’d dated him instead of Sam. What starts as a friend helping out another friend turns into foreplay and, before they realize it, they recognize how deeply they care for one another. But when things get serious their past threatens to destroy everything they have built.
My Rating: 3.75 Rounded up to 4 stars.
cover 4; characters 4; plot 3; pace 4; writing 4; enjoyment 4
My Review: This was a fairly decent spicy romance. It didn’t necessarily have the humor that I like in my romance novels, but where it lacked that, it definitely made up for it in some very healthy character growth in the back half of the book. It involved our characters going to therapy and working through there issues. And I don’t consider that a spoiler, I consider it a HELL YEAH! for healthy relationships 101.
We stan a best friends to lovers plot in this house, and we always ALWAYS stan for a Demi heroine. Avery never uses the term to describe herself but given that she expressly states she must be emotionally connected to someone to want to have sex with them, we’re going to put this book firmly in the collection of Demisexual representation.
I’m interested in Avery’s sisters and I want to know more about their relationships with each other and more about their business, Spark House, but I’m sure I’ll get more of both in the next two sequels!
As a note, the beginning of this book, with Avery’s car accident and the sisters talking about losing their parents as children can bring up a lot of trauma for some people. For me it was a bit sticky to get through reading about the girls losing their parents as kids because my sister passed away about a month ago and my niece is the same age now as Avery was when she lost her parents so seeing that put me on a bit of an emotional roller coaster. Also, after Avery’s accident there’s quite a bit of talk from Declan’s POV about not knowing what’s happening to her and not knowing if she’s going to be okay while in the hospital (again all of this is in the book flap so not a spoiler) and if you’ve lived through that before, I imagine it would be difficult to read.
To see more reviews & purchase links, check out When Sparks Fly on Goodreads.
To see more of my reviews, head over to the reviews page on my website.