Sep
Today I’m excited to participate in the Blog Tour of ‘When Sparks Fly’ by Helena Hunting. This is a Contemporary Romance novel that was published on September 21st.
In ‘When Sparks Fly’ we read the story of Avery and Declan. Avery runs a hotel/event space with her sisters and loves everything about it. Next to having a great job, and having a great relationship with her sisters, Avery lives with her best friend Declan in a nice apartment. They have a great living arrangement and they share some great friends. But there has always been something more between Avery and Declan. Everyone could see it, except themselves.
When Avery survives a horrible car accident, she is forced to accept help from Declan for about everything. And soon the grow closer than ever before. But Declan is haunted by his past, and soon things aren’t going as well as hoped.
At first it honestly took me a while to really get into this story. It took a very long time for me to really feel the connection between and Avery and Declan. And I found things taking to long to really start. But luckily, when I did start to enjoy their ‘relationship’, I soon really really loved them. Especially Declan. There just was something about him that I found really charming, and I didn’t want to stop reading about him.
Avery’s character wasn’t my favorite though. There just was something about her I didn’t really like all that much.
The romance was definitely a slow burning one. At times it got a little bit more steamy, but it was mostly sweet and I definitely liked it. I always love the friends to lovers trope. There’s just something about having this solid friendship before turning lovers that I’ve always enjoyed.
This was my first Helena Hunting book, and although it wasn’t my favorite book, I did enjoy the writing. And I’d definitely love to read more books in this series.
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“That doesn’t look very friendly.” I nod in their direction.
“Maybe the horses need a time-out,” Harley mutters.
I give her the side-eye, and she fights a smirk.
“Uh-oh, we have hand and hobbyhorse flailing,” London says, pulling my attention back to the field. The argument seems to be heating up, not cooling down.
“You need to deal with that.” London gives my shoulder a shove. She’s amazing with finances and she’s great at connecting me with the right vendors, but dealing with conflict is not her strong suit.
“Not in the mood to mediate stuffed horses?” I drop my bag on the ground beside Harley’s feet and briskly cross the field as the argument escalates to yelling. I’m about twenty feet away when one of the men hauls off and whacks the other one with his hobbyhorse.
“Whoa! Whoa! Gentlemen! Time-out. That’s not very sportsmanlike conduct!” I call.
My admonishment goes unheeded, and the two men begin dueling with their hobbyhorses. The bigger of the two jabs the other man in the stomach and snatches his hobbyhorse when he loses his grip on it.
“Gentlemen! Please!” I shout, but it’s hard to be heard over their yelling and the newly formed crowd of hobbyhorse enthusiasts who have gathered and are now heckling the fighters.
Two other men toss their hobbyhorses to the hobbyhorse-less man with shouts of “Kick his ass!”
And here I thought this was a chill sport. Apparently I’m very, very wrong.
The hobbyhorsers face off again, each one holding a broom horse between their legs and another like . . . a sword, maybe? It reminds me of medieval jousting. Especially when they start stomping their feet, pawing at the ground, and prancing in place. I know things are about to escalate when they shake their heads back and forth, braying loudly and breathing out through their noses in a hardy snort.
Then they run toward each other, while yelling. Even if they’re beating on each other with stuffed horse heads, I’m not interested in anyone ending up with a concussion.
I jump in between them before they collide, which I realize a second too late puts me in a very perilous position. However, the man on my right swerves at the last second and ends up crashing into the trough, toppling it and at least half a dozen of the “feeding” hobbyhorses.
The other man skids to a stop mere inches from me, loses his balance, and falls backwards onto the ground. It rained yesterday, so while it’s sunny and dry now, the ground is still soft and mucky. And he happens to land in a seriously squishy pile of muddy grass.
He also manages to hit himself in the family jewels with the hobbyhorse. He rolls onto his side, clutching the muddy horsehead and his junk. It’s quite the spectacle. Before it turns into absolute mayhem, I grab the megaphone from the group MC and shout, “Whoa, Nelly!” like an idiot.
However, it does the trick. Every single one of them freezes. “Rider number seventeen and twenty-three, you are disqualified from this round for roughhousing and inappropriate use of your hobbyhorse!” I’m totally making this up on the fly, but someone needs to get these guys under control, and they don’t seem to be able to manage it on their own.
The guy who nut slapped himself—number twenty-three—picks himself up off the ground and hobbles gingerly over to the bench, which is now assigned to disqualified hobbyhorsers. Number seventeen throws himself down on the other end with a huff.
I lower the megaphone and cross my arms. “This is supposed to be about team building and sharing something you’re passionate about. If you want to joust, I suggest you either join a club or interview for a position at Medieval Times.”
This Blog Tour was organized by Social Butterfly PR.
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Maureen is a mom, wife, nurse, and Ravenclaw living in the Netherlands. She spends her days juggling mom-life, reading, blogging, planning date nights with her husband and working as a nurse. Maureen also is a big Anglophile, loves cooking, Gilmore Girls, Bridgerton and Harry Potter.. Always! Facebook | Instagram
Glad you mostly enjoyed this one, even with the slow start. I’ve been seeing some mixed reviews of this one so I might try it at some point but it’s not at the top of my list.
Thanks Tanya. Yes, I definitely have mixed feelings about this one too.