*I received an ARC from Voracious Readers Only in exchange for an honest review*

I actually liked this a lot better than I thought I would!

The Sparks is a story about three families who have a centuries-old feud. Each family has a specific power the members share, and most individual family member has their own unique power.

I loved the world building, characters, and plot. I can’t wait to see what’s in store for each family in the sequel!

An immersive and entertaining fantasy, The Sparks is a fantastic introduction to The Feud trilogy! I loved the characters, the amazing world-building, the intrigue, and more.

Three families – the Vapros, the Taurlum, and the Celerius- were chosen long ago and given superhuman powers with the task of protecting the city of Altryon from the dangers that lurk beyond their wall. Now, the three families are embroiled in a bitter feud, each determined to undermine and assassinate the others. However, when an even greater threat comes after the families, will they change their feuding ways and work together to defeat the enemy?

The story primarily follows several teenagers from the three feuding families, including Neil and Rhys Vapros, Darius Taurlum, and Lilly Celerius. The narration is told from several perspectives, so you really get to see the world from different points of view. I liked this, as you understand the thoughts and feelings of a variety of people, good and bad, which immersed me even more into the story. They are so many richly developed characters with unique and distinct personalities, many of whom face tremendous pressure to fight the other families and maintain their family’s reputation. Neil, Darius, and Lilly have slightly larger roles than the rest, and I loved each of them!

Neil Vapros is determined to become an assassin and make his disapproving and critical father proud. I love his determination and charisma. He lives in an abusive home with almost impossible expectations put on him. However, he never gives up. He is strong, determined, and brave. Like his Taurlum and Celerius counter-parts, Neil is a leader among his people, although he seems to be working harder than the others to prove himself to his family. Lilly is strength personified and seems to have the best support system of the bunch. She’s a fierce warrior and loyal to her family. Darius is confident, aggressive, and often brutal, but there is so much depth underneath all of his bravado.

I also like the moral greyness to some of the characters and their actions. It is unclear for most of the story who is honorable and trustworthy and who is treacherous, and just when I thought I had certain characters figured out, something would happen in the story that made me reevaluate my assertions. There are characters that I definitely rooted for and others that I loved to hate, but the moral ambiguity fascinated me.

Another aspect of the characters that I love is the cool powers that the families possess. The Vapros can teleport and turn people into ash, the Celerius have fast self-healing powers and super speed, and the Taurlum have skin of steel and superhuman strength. Several characters have added abilities beyond the traditional inherited powers, and they hone their skills and use them to their advantage, especially when their lives are threatened. Prue did an amazing job in describing the powers and the imagery is fantastic!

The author is also skilled in describing the intricacies of the families and the world without turning it into a big info dump. Altryon has a long history, as do the feuding families, and the progression and changes of the society are woven into the story quite naturally. Strong messages of family, trust, faith, finding oneself, and resilience are also at the forefront of this engrossing story.

A wonderful and vivid young adult fantasy with tons of action, political intrigue, and surprising twists, The Sparks will appeal to readers who like immersive, well-developed stories. Thanks so much to the author for a copy of the book in exchange for my honest review.

Link: https://holedupinabook.blogspot.com/2017/06/the-sparks-by-kyle-prue.html

Apparently this book won the YA best fiction in 2015 but for some reason, I must have completely overlooked it because I certainly do not recall ever laying eyes on this book at all. And for a book that won that award, it was so hard to find it on Goodreads. Usually I just search the book title but for this one, I had to actually search via author’s name to find it.

Anyways, enough about that, let’s move on with the actual book. I thoroughly enjoyed it! I honestly wasn’t expecting to completely like it – I was more leaning towards simply liking the book but, I have to say, this book surprised me. While the characters could have used a bit more character development, I still appreciated their multi-faceted personalities. The plot was also highly entertaining and I found myself deeply immersed in the story. I also received this book via audiobook so maybe the narrator influenced me into enjoying the novel more. As I stated so often, the narrator’s job is so important – it can really make or break a book.

The whole family feud thing was quite interesting. I enjoyed reading about the various abilities that each family had: Vapros had the ability to teleport and turn their enemies into ash; Taurlum had the ability of extra strength and steel like skin; and Celerius had the ability to heal from anything and speed. Among those abilities, there were also “special abilities” such as causing your enemy to fall asleep or creating earthquakes, etc. The petty infighting was admittedly a bit childish; however, I did like how each of the characters from the different families managed to set their differences aside to achieve a common goal. It felt that the characters themselves really grew up and matured along the way so that was essentially the character development in its entirety.

Another aspect that I liked about in the book was the various POVs; however, there were a few times when I thought it was a little too much. Obviously for the main characters, I think they should rightfully have their own POVs but I recall there being a few perspectives from relatively side characters that, in my opinion, didn’t really further the book at all. It just honestly made the book a little more confusing when I just really wanted to focus on the main part of the story.

Overall, though, I really liked this book. I really want to read the second book in this series but none of my library carries it unfortunately. So until I find it somehow, I’m going to have to give this series a pause.