Spark - Book Review

By Jennifer Ryder

Spark is the debut novel from Jennifer Ryder and is about Eevie and Aidan. Eevie has spent the past couple of years caring for her family and at the age of 20 is finally able to take a step back and focus on her own life. Aidan is an up-and-coming motocross rider who spends quite a bit of time away while competing. They meet through a mutual friend and while there’s attraction on both sides, the timing is off with both currently in other relationships.

Unfortunately, I can’t really go into what the story is about as so much seems to be happening all the time, mainly regarding Eevie: She goes through two relationships prior to hooking up with Aidan; She has to deal with the breakdown of some very important relationships in her life; and She attracts some unwanted attention that leaves her fighting for her life.

Despite everything, she comes out strong each and every time, and that’s probably what I like most about her. She doesn’t let the bad things in life drag her down too long and manages to keep her sense of humour.

Eevie: I’ve got to stop looking at him like I’m a starved supermodel, desperate for her next meal.

Aidan is a sweetheart and not once does he treat her with anything but respect. He is never rude to her, fulfils every promise and then some, and is so in love with her you can see it before he says it. The only downside was we never got to read about his riding. Eevie never even watches him compete or even ride. Since the author loves MX boys, I found the lack of MX material odd.

For a debut novel, I thought this was a pretty good read. Some of the sentences were rather short which caused the writing to feel a little stop-start and difficult to follow. If this wasn’t a debut novel, I would have rated this issue more harshly. Although to be honest, I don’t remember seeing this problem the further we got into the book. Either the problem was corrected or I got used to it and adjusted.

Another thing I thought was odd was that Aidan doesn’t make an appearance in the book until the 23% mark, and that appearance is pretty brief. He doesn’t pop up again until about the 50% mark, which is when they start their relationship.

I thought this was going to be a stand-alone of sorts (at least where Eevie and Aiden are concerned) but there’s an excerpt at the end of Spark that indicates that Spike (book 2) will continue with their story with new dramas unfolding. I’m hoping that perhaps Jon and Eevie will resolve their issues and regain their friendship.

I loved the Aussie slang in this book. It turns out I’ve read quite a few books written by Aussie authors, but they are clearly written for American audiences. It’s a nice change to see a book written by an Australian, set in Australia using proper Australian English. I don’t know if that’s really I thing, but I think Aussies will know what I mean. I figure if there’s such things as American English there should be an Australian English as well.

Spike (book 2) will be read in the near future.

Aiden: “Now I’ve had a taste of you, just try and keep me away.”