Book Review - When Sparks Fly by Portia MacIntosh

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Title: When Sparks Fly

Author: Portia MacIntosh

Format reviewed: Ebook

Source: Netgalley

Publisher: Boldwood Books

Publication Date: 28th September 2026

Rating: 4 Stars

Fireworks are flying over the coastal town of Marram Bay, but Lia is about to have sparks of her own...

Moving back home was never part of Lia’s plan. But then again, neither was everything falling apart. Now she’s back in the seaside town she swore she’d outgrown - living with her parents, sleeping in her teenage bedroom, and trying not to think too hard about the life she left behind in London.

At first, it’s exactly as she feared: the same pub, the same people, the same routines. Comfortingly familiar and yet completely suffocating. Until one slightly chaotic night leads to her getting locked in a pub toilet with a handsome stranger. He’s charming, funny, mysterious - and gone before she even learns his name.

In a town this small, he’s bound to turn up eventually - but when he does, Lia realises it’s going to be far more complicated than she thought.

When her past and present start to collide, Lia has a choice: keep chasing the life she thought she wanted, or stay put and see what happens when the sparks start flying.

This was another really enjoyable book from Portia MacIntosh who always has a good hit rate with me. And it's been a long while since I last read a Marram Bay set novel, to the extent that I had to after the first bit of the book, try to look up to see if I had already read this under a previous name. 

I can't see any evidence of it, although it has been previously published as a novella, and been extended for this iteration, but it did leave me with a slightly disconnected feeling throughout.  I think I just wasn't expecting anything new from this setting, especially with some of the far more exotic locations Portia has been setting books in recent years. 

But that is totally a me thing and it didn't take away from the fact it's another fun story from this author, and I enjoyed seeing Lia tie herself up in knots between two brothers. 

She is continually trying to do the right thing but one is her childhood crush and the other she started fancying after being trapped in a toilet with him, and had no idea they were related until she accepts Si's offer to move into the home he is working on, so that she can have from privacy from her parents. 

Despite what I may be implying there is no cheating or anything from Lia, she makes herself very clear or at least tries to, and she realises what a sticky situation she is in.  

Not helped by the fact that she has got herself a new job and that involves working with Adam, in addition to living with him.  it's just one messy situation, made messier by her love of alcopops of her youth, plus her childhood friend trying to be some sort of influence on her.

This was a nice, quick and easy book to devour and it gave me a lot of much appreciated escapism.  

Thank you to Boldwood Books and Netgalley for this copy which I have reviewed honestly and voluntarily.