Lina's Reviews > Sparks Fly

4.25 / 5 Stars
This was a great, quick read with low angst romance! In “Sparks Fly,” Stella is a late bloomer. She is 27 years old and still a virgin and she is ready to lose her V-card. Naturally that leads her to a night at a sex club with her roommate to get the deed over with. There she meets a hot stranger and while they have some fun, there are some snags, they don’t go all the way (PiV sex at least), and Stella skedaddles. Much to her surprise, she sees Max, the sexy stranger, at work the next day because he is the CEO’s brother and he is introducing a new AI product to help her company be more productive. Despite the complications, Max and Stella are still very attracted to each other, which only makes the tangled web they wove even more tangled.

You will probably like this book if you like:
💖 Virgin FMC x Serial Monogamist MMC
💖 Bi4Bi (and other LGBTQ+ representation)
💖 Exploration of being a late bloomer in life
💖 Afro-Latine main characters
💖 Adopted child representation
💖 Discussions of grief
💖 Discussion of use of AI in artistic process

I think the author did a great job of capturing what it feels like to be a later in life virgin. As one, I think she captured the weird juxtaposition of having life experience, skills, and self-confidence in many areas of life, but also feeling inexperienced and insecure in another area. Stella was not fumbling around all the time but she did feel nervous with Max. And then there is the other weird balance of not wanting to make it a big deal but sometimes it does feel like a big deal. It’s complicated and not necessarily straightforward and I really appreciated the portrayal. My only wish was for there to be less of a focus on connecting virginity and penetrative sex. I feel like it just perpetuates a heteronormative connection and that kind of surprised me because there were so many queer characters in this book. I totally understand Stella wanted to experience all aspects of sex but I wish she didn’t feel like she was a virgin until she had PiV sex.

Also if you have ever gotten ahead of yourself in relationships (who amongst us hasn’t) or if you have ever felt like no one that you like likes you back, you will relate heavily to Stella. And there was a lot of queer representation in this book (there is an aromantic side character which was really great to see since it feels rare).

Max and Stella had a pretty low angst relationship which was a nice change of pace. They met in a sex club but after that, they had a pretty standard dating journey. They went on dates. They got to know each other. They hooked up. It was not a slow burn but didn’t feel insta-lusty either which was pretty refreshing too. I felt like sometimes Max felt too perfect. We love an emotionally intelligent and regulated man, but I wanted to see some more emotion out of him especially at the end. And it was hard to tell if Max was being sarcastic or cocky with some of his jokes. I think the former, but it wasn’t always clear.

Because their relationship was low angst, the drama came from other relationships and the work conflict. I feel like we did gloss over some AI related questions (for example, one of Stella’s coworkers asked Max about the environmental impact of AI and that is just ignored), which felt like a missed opportunity to have a deeper discussion.

All of that being said, Max and Stella had fun chemistry and I felt myself rooting for them the whole book.

Thank you Berkley and NetGalley for providing this eARC! All opinions are my own.
Publication Date: December 2, 2025
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Pre-Read Thoughts: You know when you're in a life slump and then everything you pick up to read just doesn't feel right and then your book slump makes your life slump worse (and rinse and repeat)? Yeah, that's me right now. So I am picking up a book that I am super excited to read and just crossing my fingers. Otherwise, we are going to have to hire one of those Etsy witches to give me some good juju. 😆😆😆