I wish this one was more around the holidays but it was still an adorable love story. I recommend for sure

Okay, so let me clear this up first; I LOVE the unexpected pregnancy trope and knew this was going to happen here, it was pretty clear from the blurb. However, my problem was with the male character and how they approached the whole fatherhood thing. The fact that she was willing for him to just test whether it was for him or not? and then she was barely making noise because she didn't want to make him run for the hills?? girl get outta there.

This is a short story but such a delightful one. It’s packed with emotion, sometimes happy feelings and sometimes sadness or anger. Set in Cobbler’s Cove on the Australian coast, A Spark Of Joy is all about two people who had difficult childhoods finding love and learning to accept their pasts. For Josh it’s about learning to trust. Born to teenage parents, he and his sister were abandoned by them when they were just young children. Olivia has had the opposite experience. Her mother had numerous miscarriages and difficult pregnancies so when Olivia came along she was overprotective and spent Olivia’s formative years warning her of the dangers of pregnancy.
Much of this story takes place very late in Olivia’s pregnancy, which has come about courtesy of a one night stand with Josh before he went overseas for work. I loved the way author Lee Darragh used the beach setting, particularly the sand dunes, to show significant points in Josh’s life. I loved the sense of family and community in this story and I loved the way that Liv and Josh faced their demons and “earned to forgive each other. For a short story this one has a huge amount going on. It’s told well and I found it thoroughly engaging throughout.

Thank you NetGalley, Escape Publishing and Lea Darragh for gifting me an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review!
** TikTok Sound** Oh no. Oh no. Oh no no no no no. I’m not sure why I requested this book if I’m honest, because I can’t stand pregnancy plots. I don’t think this is much of a spoiler because the description quite little picks up 8 months after a one night stand between the two main characters. I think there have been very few times where pregnancy plots are done in a way that’s not predictable and cheesy. And I’ll say this, I was not predicting how toxic this one would be! I hated Josh. I understand that becoming a parent wasn’t the plan but his behavior was infuriating. And then add Olivia’s reaction to said behavior and I just wanted to shake them both. My own father acted exactly like Josh, so maybe i’m just overly sensitive and being seriously triggered by some stuff in this book? Or it’s just not that good. I’ll let you decide!!

This story started really well and I was excitedly reading the first few chapters. I was drawn in quickly to the story through good writing and the characters were appealing - at the beginning the heroine seemed strong. However, at some stage the story started going around in circles ie going nowhere and I felt I was reading the same conversation between the hero and heroine about three or four times. It then seemed to lose control when the dysfunctional parental relationships started taking over the story. At this point the heroine started apologising for everything - going from strong to victim mode, and the hero began acting unbalanced and emotionally manipulative. Yuk. I just wanted them all to go to therapy. It was disappointingly too much on the narcissist/empath spectrum for my liking, I'm afraid. The author's writing voice is lovely, so some research on character arc development would be beneficial, in my opinion.