When Sparks Fly

Sparks fly is a friends to lovers, roommate romance that handles some heavier topics while balancing building relationships between the characters.

It’s a little heavy and sad at times, which isn’t what I usually love in my romance. This book is a true romance as we end up with a HEA, but it’s a sad journey getting there. Our hero, Declan takes it upon himself to take care of his best friend Avery after she was in a pretty rough car accident. He blames himself for the accident since he bailed on her the morning of and otherwise would have been with her. The relationship grows as the two of them come closer to one another, both physically and emotionally during Ave’s healing journey.

The conflict wasn’t my favourite, but it was resolved in what I felt was a healthy way. The whole time I was like “this better happen” and it did (I was very thankful Declan chose to go see a therapist because his reaction was unhealthy and he definitely needed a way to discuss and work through those emotions), which was a relief. Avery handled the situation in a very mature way, not putting all the blame on Declan but recognizing his reaction also wasn’t appropriate. I still enjoyed it, but I didn’t quite get those butterfly feelings between Declan and Avery. I did, however, really like the way Declan chose to reach back out to Avery at the end. Using the crossword was sweet and brought the story full circle.

While this wasn’t my favourite, I can see a lot of reading will be drawn to Avery’s healing story and will fall for how caring Declan was!

Avery Spark knows her roommate is cute. Ok, not just cute. Really, really hot. But she and Declan are friends - and that's for the best. Until, maybe, it isn't. After Declan pushes their friendship to the side for a one-night stand, self-sufficient Avery's life is turned upside down - and Declan and Avery find themselves in a dynamic neither of them ever bargined for.

I absolutely loved When Sparks Fly! It's charming, emotional, sweet, and steamy. This one's going to be a huge hit! RIYL friends to lovers tropes, YA romance.

When Sparks Fly (EBook) by Helena Hunting
This is a friends to lovers story. Avery Spark and Declan McCormick have been best friends since college and now they are roommates. After Avery in badly injured in a car accident and Declan feels guilty because he was supposed to be driving her - he offers to take care of her. There is angst, guilt, anger, laughter, love, tears, jealousy, misunderstanding and lots of steamy stuff to get us to their HEA.
Reasons I enjoyed this book:
Happily Ever After Easy-to-read Unpredictable Romantic Tear-jerker Great world building Page-turner Entertaining Funny Wonderful characters Steamy

WOW!!! Where are all of the glowing reviews for this incredible book? I loved it so much! The two main characters were so feisty and believable and had incredibly hot chemistry together. But, this was not just a fluffy romance. It deals with some heavy topics in a really sensitive way, like PTSD and anxiety. This is easily my favorite romance that I have read this year and I have consumed a LOT of romance books. Man, this was an absolute delight and I really enjoyed it. Read it, read it, read it!!!

Lovely novel - liked the hero and heroine. Although a bit long in parts, I thought it was a fun contemporary romance. I would read other books by this author.

This book was provided free via NetGalley.

What might be most frustrating about this novel, is how wasted its potential is! As someone who has read (literally) hundreds of romance novels, it sometimes feels that all the tropes on how 2 characters go from friends to lovers are repetitive and thus unmemorable. However, Avery and Declan have a GREAT trope that is totally unique AND believable. Where it falls flat is the lack of connection I felt between the two of them. These 2 have known each other for years and apparently have been hiding their feelings for just as long but I could have easily believed that they started living together 3 months ago and now want to sleep together. The story really could have benefited either from flashbacks in the past, or more of insight of how their relationship grew. I think this would have been more beneficial than Declan's POV chapters.

Loved this story, but felt like the ending was sped up. For a great romance I don't mind reading a bit about how being apart was. I didn't even feel like I knew WHERE Avery went when she moved out?? Felt rushed at the ending, would love to give it more stars if I felt it hadn't just been swept up in a quick ending.

While I am a huge fan of the friends to lovers trope, I don't think this narrative and pair of characters delivered on that promise. The exposition of the story happens too quickly, the only evidence I have that the two main characters who happen to be opposite sex roommates are also best friends is the fact that the female character, Avery, keeps telling us so. There is A LOT of telling in this book and very little showing. She tells us they are best friends since college but he, Declan, doesn't ACT like a best friend at all. In a fit of jealousy he completely abandons his best friend who has to make a long road trip in terrible weather alone -- which leads to a car accident that leaves Avery immobile. Declan feels absolutely terribly and awfully guilty and in taking care of her every need, kind of falls in love with her? The problem was that I never really believed these two were friends in the first place and Declan is immature, insensitive and too much of a douchebag to ever be likable throughout the whole novel. And it just gets worse from there. There's insecurity that breeds as jealousy and he jumps to conclusions, doesn't let her explain herself, etc. I mean, for me, all I ask in a romance novel is that the male love interest be someone that I can root for, someone I could love or want the female lead to end up with -- I was yelling RUN AVERY RUN at my kindle every time Declan showed his "playboy" side. It wasn't attractive.

I'm giving this two stars because maybe there is an audience for this type of novel, but I am not it. I don't know if I will be reading Helena Hunting ever again either because she used outdated and unnatural phrases in her characters' inner thoughts and dialogue like: morning nookie. What adult woman refers to sex as nookie, IN HER OWN HEAD?

Avery is a very strong character and I loved that about her. Declan is a sweet guy, and I loved that about him. I was surprised to read that family and friends had MUCH opinions about Avery’s and Declan’s really close, tight friendship…and never said a word. Never expressed an opinion. That was a bit odd for me.

Overall, I loved their close relationship and then how it changes, and grows, after Avery’s accident. They each have defining events in their pasts (both long ago and recent) to personally work thru but reading about them growing closer was great. At times, there was a lot of angst that I could have done without, but overall, I enjoyed the read. And their HEA turns out to be hard fought and hard won.

Overall an enjoyable read. Cute and a little frustrating at times, oh well isn’t life this way nowadays. Family issues and terrible events are what we are used to. We can relate real quick. We can forgive or forget. Our decisions writes our story.

Helena Hunting has taken an intriguing premise, and turned it into an engaging, touching story of romantic love built on a strong foundation of friendship and shared history. Avery and Declan became fast friends in college, and developed a tight knit circle of friends. Both Avery and Declan endured trauma and tragedy early in their lives. Declan is a loyal friend, but emotionally closed off to the possibility of a meaningful commitment to a woman, and Avery, who loves her sisters, her friends, and her career, just isn't all that motivated to find "the one."

Here's what makes this book a real standout for me. First, the entire cast of characters are multi-faceted, flawed, loveable, and funny too. There is a genuine, palpable connection between Avery and her sisters, and Declan and everyone. He is considerate and thoughtful (most of the time! There were two times in the story that I wanted to throttle him in the head - see next paragraph), and takes care of those around him. It's rare that characters are so well-developed that I feel like Spark House and Avery and Declan's condo are real places where we could go to hang out with them.

Declan makes two major missteps, and man, I was ANGRY with him. As the story progresses, we gain a better understanding of why he emotionally isolates, and then all I felt was compassion for him, but prepare yourselves. You'll likely want to yell and cuss at him!

I thoroughly enjoyed the realistic description of the tender care and thoughtfulness that Declan provides while helping Avery rehab, and how even when frustration bubbles over, one can see that they truly love one another. The journey of observing them find their way to happily ever after is rich, sometimes very sexy, and totally enjoyable.

This was your typical romance book. I thought it was a bit draggy in the middle and I could have done without the self satisfying comments. Over all it was an enjoyable book.
Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for the early copy

It was good and then it went ... 🤔. The story is a slow burn, bestfriends to lover trope, and has a dual POV. The chemistry between the two lead characters was okay. However, the story was a little bit predictive, so I ended up skimming the pages. I'm a big fan of Helena Hunting, but to be honest I didn't enjoy reading this book. It felt like it was a chore to read it. I'm giving it 2 stars for being well written.

I was really excited to read “When Sparks Fly”by Helena Hunting- a friends to lovers story one friend nurses other friend to health all while falling in love with them. Call me a weirdo doctor who loves a “shit, you almost just died” trope. Sadly, this book didn’t live up to my expectations.

Avery and Declan are best friends from college. They are now 29, which is important only bc they act like they just graduated college 5 minutes ago, which is confusing bc they are almost 30. It’s clear they are in love with each other, but Declan doesn’t like relationships and is thus an adult boy-slut. Declan is annoying bc he is an adult man who refuses to commit bc he doesn’t want to repeat the mistakes of his parents who went thru a bad divorce YEARS ago. Weak sauce.

Declan gets jealous bc Avery has a date. He gets drunk, has a sexy sleepover, and ditches out on a planned trip he was supposed to take with Avery. Avery heads out alone and has a horrible car accident and breaks her whole body. Wracked w guilt, Declan nurses Avery back to health and provides her w sexual healing pleasures and it seems as though he’s no longer a selfish prick. Until he is a selfish prick again. Avery is just there with her broken body, feeling sad for herself, fucking shit up, triggering everyone, and then acting innocent and apologizing. I didn’t really like either of them. I found them both co-dependent and immature- I hope they are happy together.

Smut- 2 stars
Romance- 2.5 stars (add a star if you find co-dependency sexy)
Story- 3 stars (tho this feels generous)
“I can’t commit bc my parents suck” trope- -5 stars

When Sparks Fly is my first Helena Hunting book, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. It is a friends to lovers story, and Avery and Declan have quite a fantastic friendship, it makes you feel jealous! Declan is gentle, funny, loyal and a hot mess in the relationship department. Avery is strong, competitive, determined, loyal and has her own relationship issues, and their change in status from friends to lovers is a very satisfying read.

Thank you NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for allowing me to enjoy this story for my honest opinion.

I received an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I've read a few books by this author and enjoyed them so I was happy to be able to read this book, however, I struggled to get through the storyline as the main characters felt forgettable. The synopsis of this book was pretty spot on and the plot just went on and on and on. This was a miss for me.

This is your typical friends to lovers romance. It had a very dramatic, traumatic beginning and was not what I expected. I expected more of a build up but a lot of their history is explained throughout the story. I did enjoy the heroine's relationship with her sister and hope they get a story. Declan came out swinging with not great stories but eventually he wins you over and wow the ending! SWOON. I do like that we got so much time with the characters but most of it was spent in a bubble. It felt like their own kind of quarantine. I think the romance was a hard sell at first and then it abruptly changed. The way the relationship spanned was easy until it wasn't. Avery and Declan were a couple that you didn't understand until you did. It was an enjoyable read.

This would have been better as a movie… I’m fairly new to this genre in novel form, whereas I love Rom-Com’s on the big screen and with that in mind I couldn’t stop thinking about how this would have been so much better as a movie.

Hunting kept glazing over the good parts and dragging out some of the parts that would have been better in a montage. That being said I still enjoyed this book. It was cute, the friends to lovers is not my favourite trope but it was fun. I did love the main character's sisters and would love to see a novel for each of them on their romantic journey. I also enjoyed having both main characters’ POV but I wish here were more from Declan.

I would like to point out that I did like how Hunting really drew out the ending explaining exactly how something like that would come about, and not just snap your fingers and everything is resolved and all character flaws are fixed.

Rom-Com Check List:
Super hot leading roles: Yup
Outlandish & adorable meet-cute: Nope
Forbidden love: Not really
Quick-witted fun banter: A little, but what was there was fun
Hilarity: Not so much – more so on the drama than the comedy
Cheesy & endearing love confessions: Nope
Fun montage-able moments: Yup
Sexy love scenes: Yup
Funny quirky sidekicks: Yup
Heartbreak & betrayal: Yup
Happily Ever After: Sorry No Spoilers but the ending really was explained

Special thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Griffin for sharing this digital copy in exchange for my honest thoughts.

This one didn't hit the spot for me. I didn't connect with either of the main characters. A friends to lovers with lots of hurdles along the way to HEA.

I received an advance copy of this book from the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Avery is loving life - she’s got a great job working with her sisters to run an event hotel, a great group of friends, and a condo with her best friend, and notorious playboy, Declan. But when she gets into a car accident, and requires assistance for everyday tasks, Declan steps up to take care of her. The lines begin to blur as she heals, and their attraction for each other becomes hard to ignore.

This was a friends-to-lovers romance, and I thought it was well done! The relationship that Avery and Declan have is filled with shared history from their time in college when they met into the present, and I thought there was a good effort to show how strong their friendship was.

There were moments in this book that I couldn’t relate to - some conflicts were a bit out of the realm of possibility for me, but I also didn’t have their experiences driving my thinking.

The ending prior to the epilogue was beautiful, and I thought that the steps they took were really important in developing a stronger relationship. The epilogue was unnecessary to complete their story, in my opinion, but I think some readers will appreciate what it adds.

Overall, I think this was a great story about taking care of the people we love, and exploring how much they mean to us. The writing flowed well and it was a nice quick read. I’d recommend if anything that I said sparked your interest (pun very much intended).