I always enjoy a good friends to lovers trope. We follow Avery Spark, who has everything going for her. She has great friends, her sisters, and the event hotel her family owns, Spark House. She even lives with her best friend, Delcan McCormick. Though she hasn't had much luck in the relationship department. Avery's whole life is upturned when she is in a serious car accident. Delcan jumps to her rescue to take care of her while she heals.

Declan has always been a bit of a playboy and has never been one for relationships. This way of life ends up having him putting a one-night stand ahead of his promise to accompany Avery on a trip, the same trip that Avery got into the car accident on. He is quick to become her caretaker and has so much guilt for the role he played in the events.

Soon, the duo realizes that there has always been a spark between them and their being in this new position makes it nearly impossible to ignore. The past and insecurities cause issues though and they must learn to navigate through these in order to salvage the love that has been brewing since college.

This just wasn't it for me. I generally love a good friends to lovers trope, but with their already forced proximity, it seemed unbelievable that it hadn't happened before now. The heroine was boring and insecure. Also, can we talk about the hero? I just never got around to liking him. I kept waiting for this big redemptive ending, and then I ended up liking him even less after the major conflict. I honestly did not want them to get together. I think we've missed the mark when we're rooting against the romance of the main characters. They were immature, petty, and/or down right unlikable.

I was beyond excited to get the opportunity to listen to this story! It wasn't without its #twitchy plot-points, imo, but overall it was a feel-good story that warmed my heart from the inside out.

Two, already long time friends, get even closer when tragedy strikes one and the other is guilt-ridden because of it. Throw in the close proximity factor and it just made for a perfect friends-to-more journey! I was specially pleased that with this story, we not only got a journey to HEA between two people, but also a growth journey for our characters. It was very organic and relatable.

Without giving away any of this story, I will say that I was not a huge fan of not only the *huge* conflict at the end but also the *tragedy* that began this entire journey. Both of those centered around Declan and his behavior and it made it very difficult to root for him. They were both HUGE *what the actual F* am I reading right now moments and they both sucked a lot of joy of the story from me but like I mentioned above, overall, this story did warm my heart and I was happy while reading it but some of the choices the author made for the characters tested me LOL

As for my listening experience ... I am glad that I had the opportunity to listen to this audio because just listening to Stella Bloom & Jason Clark together gave me a little of the joy back that the reading had sucked away :) I've learned that reading a book and listening to it can give you different experiences and this particular one gave me a better experience!

As for the *rating* of my experience, I'd have to say that overall, it was a 3.5 out of 5 star but the reading was merely a 2(ish) star and the audio bumped it up to a 3(ish) star.

This was such a great audio read. Jason Clarke & Stella Bloom do an excellent job, telling this story.. Running Spark House is all that Avery Spark’s know how to do. She is obsessive about keeping up the family resort and making it even better. Avery and her sisters inherited the resort after their parents died and it keeps the girls together and reminds them of their parents. Avery is seemingly blessed with a good life and good friends. She has a best friend/roommate Declan. They have a friendship that is amazing.. Until one day Avery gets in a terrible accident and her whole world falls apart. She is broken physically and mentally.. Declan should have been with her and he is weighted down with guilt. The two must find their way, in their new life. Her sisters must also take over Avery’s responsibilities. They all must be honest with each other and they must all be honest with themselves. Can they all work things out? Can they forgive each other? Will there be a happily ever after? This was a very cute, quick read.. I enjoyed listening to this own.. I hope you do too..

This was an excellent read! The relationship and chemistry between Avery and Declan are believable and swoonworthy. The book also dealt with loss and cheating-but never in a way that was too heavy or distracted from the more light-hearted tone of the novel.
This was a dual-narration that was done extremely well. It was never jarring to switch narrators and the narrators easily immersed me in the story.

It took a few chapters to really get into this story but once I became invested in Avery and Declan, I was all in! I truly enjoyed this friends to lovers story and how both main characters came from dramatic pasts and had baggage they needed to work through. Their friendship was so strong that it seemed as though nothing could break them apart. The playfulness between them was fun, but the chemistry and sexual tension was also very apparent!

Appreciated the tension and drama that Helena Hunting infused into the couple's story and found that it really helped grow their characters as individuals and a couple. It wasn't drama for the sake of drama. It was deep routed, emotional and life changing.

I wished there was more from the side characters, especially Avery's sisters. They seemed to be such an interictal part of her life but their presence in the story was minimal.

The narration for this book was superb! Both narrators did an incredible job capturing the emotion and personality of the characters. It was a pleasure to listen to on audio!

Solid 4 star read and I especially liked the epilogue!

Another fun romance between friends, realistic dialog, good writing, and overall a good read. The audio was excellent unfortunately I wasn’t a huge fan of Avery. The ultra sexy, video game loving dream girl blah blah blah. I also didn’t relate to the timing for the sexual aspect of the relationship, seemed fast to me, but maybe it will work better for others.

⭐️⭐️⭐️ Three stars with a 18+ rating

Another amazing book with great narration. Helena Hunting never disappoints and yet again I got lost in her book. I enjoyed the friendship and loved the chemistry building between roommates Avery and Declan. The dual narration in the audio book was on point. I’m always in a mood for a Helena Hunting book. Highly recommend

A sexy, angsty and emotional friends to lovers romance about friendship and family.
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Helena Hunting never disappoints! When Sparks Fly was so easy to get lost in. I enjoyed the friendship and simmering chemistry between best friends and roommates Avery and Declan. Their connection and genuine love for each other was evident. The audiobook was done in dual person narration which is always a big plus, especially in a romance read! ⁣
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This was exactly the kind of read I needed after so many thrillers last month. I flew threw the audio and although there were some heavier themes involving grief, loss, infidelity and guilt it never felt too heavy. Loved the inclusion of therapy and how positive it is. Looking forward to more from this series!

I really enjoyed this friends to lovers read! It was delightfully fun and packed with an abundance of humour and combustible tension!

This was my first by Hunting and I really liked her writing style and found it incredibly addictive! The characters were just so likeable and because of that, they felt very realistic. I totally relished in their alternating POVs! They really had some great chemistry and I applauded the emotional depth that was portrayed.

All around this was a fun read that I highly recommend!

This was such a cute “hallmark” type of story. I found it so sweet and enjoyed the sisters strong bond. I also enjoyed the slow build up of the romance. I also found the story to be overall paced perfectly.

Friends to lovers is one of may top romance tropes, so I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to listen to When Sparks Fly by Helena Hunting.

Avery and Declan have been friends since college. She is a one man woman while he is the epitome of a Playboy. The best friends end up moving in together following Avery’s break up with another guy in their friend group. A car accident leads Avery to depend on Declan for even the simplest of tasks while she recovers. This is where their relationship takes a turn.

I liked the steam and tension between the two main characters. I also feel that the frustration and anxiety the two have is realistic along with the concerns and reactions of their friends and family. The one thing that felt disjointed at times was the dialogue. There were several conversations or back and forths that felt unnatural to be spoken even if they are valid thoughts people in the situations would have. I still enjoyed the book, but feel the dialogue is what made the difference between a 4 and 5 star rating.

The dual narration was great for this audiobook. The narrators did a great job conveying emotion in the intense situations without coming across as whiny like some female narrators do. This was a huge plus for me!

Thank you to @netgalley and @macmillianaudio for a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

Avery and Declan have been best friends since college and always had an attraction to one another. When Avery gets in an accident and needs Declan to take care of her, they start to wonder if they care for each other as more than friends. This contemporary romance is one of my favorite tropes, friends to lovers! Avery and Declan’s story just melted my heart. It was full of cute steamy moments! I loved the character growth in this book also. I thought the author handles trust issues and mental health issues very well. Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Griffin for sharing this digital reviewer copy with me in exchange for my honest review.

Stella Bloom and Jason Clarke narrate the audiobook for Helena Hunting's When Sparks Fly in dual-POV – a performance that elevates this contemporary romance. Their narration brings this friends-to-lovers romance to life, capturing the emotional intensity of the novel, which explores the challenging journey from friends to lovers when two people are so deeply in denial that their behavior affects their friendship and the development of a romantic relationship. When Sparks Fly takes readers on an emotional journey with two people who must learn how to navigate a vastly different and far riskier relationship after years of being best friends. Hunting’s development and evolution of the characters are the best aspects of the novel. Her description is vivid, brilliantly bringing the characters, their emotions, and the story to life and drawing readers into the story with ease. I loved Avery’s and Declan’s friendship, which had already been years in the making at the start of the novel. Hunting vividly shows the strength and depth of their relationship within the story and superbly deals with their emotional/mental and relationship issues in a nuanced and thoughtful way that influences the evolution of the characters.

Avery Sparks works her dream job every day, running the family’s Spark House hotel/event space with her two sisters in Colorado Springs. She loves her friends, working with her sisters at a job she adores, and living with her best friend Declan in the condo they jointly own. Maybe it’s not so bad that she doesn’t have a love life. She doesn’t have time for one anyway. A car accident leaves Avery severely injured, immobile, and needing extra care and help while healing. After poor judgment leads to nearly losing Avery, Declan chooses to care for his best friend himself. Despite being best friends and roommates since college, Avery’s reliance on Declan as her caretaker to care for her daily needs pushes their relationship to a more intimate level that becomes confusing and overwhelming. Feelings they have either repressed, denied, or even been unaware of surge to the surface because of their even closer quarters, intimate situations, and Declan lending Avery a “helping hand.”. While they have friendship down flawlessly, moving into a sexual, romantic relationship is a leap for which they’re woefully unprepared.

Independent, athletic, stubborn, and work-driven, Avery hasn’t opened her heart or taken a chance on love since a devastating college breakup with Declan’s then best friend. Declan is a loyal, handsome, and intense accountant who avoids commitment like the plague. Cynical and emotionally challenged about romantic relationships because of childhood baggage, he’s a manwhore who could care less about love. Hunting tries to support the choices made by the characters – Declan especially – with their backgrounds, however, at times, it’s difficult to reconcile those choices with what we are to believe about their connection/relationship with each other. Declan lets Avery down in such a hurtful and thoughtless way it affects the way I see him and whether I feel he is a worthy love interest for Avery.

I was excited to read his novel when I found out Helena Hunting was writing a friends-to-lovers romance because I love how she writes humor, steam, and emotional romance in her novels. I expected one of my favorite authors writing my favorite romance trope to be an automatic five-star read, but it was more complicated. Just as exploring the tricky path from friends to lovers after nearly a decade of friendship almost always turns out to be. A solid foundation of a past awareness/acceptance of sexual attraction toward each other by Declan and Avery – aside from just saying they are attractive or sexy – before starting any foreplay was one thing missing from the novel. While others remark on seeing the interest and roots of its existence for years, little of Declan’s and Avery’s outward behavior toward each other supports this belief, especially on Avery’s side. We get a bit from Declan, but without spoilers, I won’t go into it. The Hunting brilliantly described and built up the chemistry and sexual tension when they suddenly appear. However, I missed her usual steam level. Keeping most of the sex between them offscreen when the characters supposedly have been suppressing their attraction as long as these two have is not only disappointing but also works against making the attraction between them believable. But considering certain events, I could see where Hunting might want to draw attention away from their sexual connection, focusing more on the friendship and emotional connection.

Clarke’s and Bloom’s narration beautifully captures the essence of Declan’s and Avery’s characters, their close friendship, and the emotional intensity of their relationship, as well as the intense emotions they experience from everything that happens in the novel. Their narration brings each character to life, giving each a unique voice that fits that character by using pitch, cadence, accents, dialects, etc., for primary and secondary characters. Plus, they make Declan feel more sympathetic somehow. Listening to the audiobook added a deeper dimension to the novel because the narrators totally nailed the emotional undercurrents running through the book.

When Sparks Fly is an intensely emotional, thoughtful exploration of friendship, love, responsibility, and how our pasts and parental baggage heavily influence how we relate to people, view, and form emotional/sexual bonds and relationships with people. Huntington takes a rare perspective on friends-to-lovers romance and difficulty in transitioning from friends to lovers by focusing more on the emotional and psychological connections and bonds between the two people and the importance of balancing those connections/bonds and sex. Consequently, it’s more of a romantic drama than a rom-com and one of the most thoughtful and emotionally complex friends-to-lovers romances I’ve read because, at its core, the emotional connection between Avery and Declan truly is the most fundamental theme. I can’t imagine anyone other than Clarke and Bloom narrating this book as powerfully.

This is a very charming romcom- love blooming between long-time friends, and their desires to keep each other at arm's length. I found the conversations between characters realistic and the plot to be understandable. I did think a conversation had toward the end of the novel between the main character and someone from her past way too evolved for me, but I may just not be as mature as these characters with their feelings. Overall, it was a fun love story!

When Sparks Fly by Helena Hunting was so cheesy and so cliche, I had a hard time with it. If you are a romance reader and can suspend reality, you will love this! I just couldn't accept the story for what it is. It was too unrealistic.

So, this book completely took me by surprise. This was my first read by Hunting and it didn’t disappoint! I now understand why I always see her work consistently floating around Bookstagram.

I listened to the audiobook of When Sparks Fly, and I absolutely devoured it! It’s a dual point of view book, and it actually has two different narrators (which I’m always a sucker for). The narrators did a wonderful job and completely sucked me in! I actually found myself listening to the book for hours on end (which normally doesn’t happen for me).

In terms of plot, friends to lovers is always a tough sell for me - I either end up loving it or not caring for it at all. This book fell into the former category. I loved that Avery and Declan were college besties, as opposed to lifelong childhood friends. Their friendship only spanning a few years (instead of decades) made it easier for me to more fully lean into the story.

Additionally, I’m a big fan of forced proximity and this book has it in spades (plus tons of sweet / tender moments of caregiving). Watching the proximity gradually shift the relationship dynamics and blur the lines of friendship between Avery and Declan, was just so good!

My favorite part of the book was definitely the ending! Without spoiling anything, the conclusion of the book was done wonderfully and had me completely in my feelings.

Overall, this book for me, felt like the perfect material for a show on the CW. The drama and romance would make for one hell of a guilty pleasure watch (one that I would binge without hesitation)!

After reading, When Sparks Fly, I’m now super excited to dive into more of Hunting’s work!

Thank you to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for the ARC audiobook!

The female narrator was great but the male narrator was terrible for the role in my opinion. Story was enjoyable but a little cringey at times.

When Avery Spark is not at Spark House, the event organization owned by her family, she is either hanging out with her sisters, being active with her friends, or shooting the breeze with her best friend and roommate Declan McCormick. After a terrible car accident puts both Avery and Declan too close for comfort, will the dynamics of their friendship change?

Readers who are looking for romance entangled in friendship, When Sparks Fly is definitely for them. The plot is pretty much what one would expect from a romance novel with twenty-something characters. Their boldness and frank talk remind me of their real life counterparts in the general sense.

The audio is narrated by two actors, with Jason Clarke presenting the part of Declan and Stella Bloom the part of Avery. I am not usually a fan of dual perspectives in a novel, but the combination of the two narrators gave the book more depth. Both characters are read well and the narration helps to bring the book to life.

Although romance is not my preferred genre, I enjoyed branching out into something newer to me. Readers who are fans of the genre will enjoy When Sparks Fly.

Disclaimer: I was given an Advanced Audio Copy of When Sparks Fly, from NetGalley and the publisher, Macmillan Audio. The decision to listen to and review this audiobook was entirely my own.

I was expecting a bit of a Hallmark friends to lovers trope, but this was NOT that. It was best friends melting into each other because of external factors and whew! It was a steamy, sensual, and seductively sexy. Avery and Declan made the best couple ever, except neither of them realized how perfect they were for each other until Avery needs him, and then Declan rises to the challenge. I loved the sweet moments and special “them” things, the amazing way Declan cares for Avery, and the way they eventually begin treating their relationship like a precious gift. The audiobook version was really lovely, and I enjoyed the difference in Avery and Declan’s voices.