A bit too lengthy In my opinion even though it’s not necessarily a long book. It’s a very slow burn and I’m not necessarily invested so I decided to stop at 40%. Thanks for the copy of this book to the publisher and to Netgalley!

A Frenzy of Sparks is a poignant coming of age story. 13 year old Gia grows up quickly in the summer of 1965 as drugs invade her neighborhood and her family. This was a compelling, heartbreaking read. The time period was captured perfectly and I was instantly transported. The drug addiction that takes hold was portrayed fabulously and the ripple it makes down the characters executed seamlessly. The loss of Gia’s innocence is a slow unraveling as events unfold around her. This was unputdownable and completely captivating. 4⭐️ My thanks to @amazonpublishing for the advance reader in exchange for my honest review.

Isn’t this cover pretty? Last year I read “A Lily in the Light” and really loved this authors style of storytelling. I was excited to dive into A Frenzy of Sparks especially when I read the quote on the cover from an author I love,Suzanne Redfearn. The whole time I was reading the book I kept thinking “my book club would love this story!” So if your reading this girls, get ready to see this on the list for next years book picks!
Beautifully written about a young girl who lives a simple life spending her days with family wishing and daydreaming of life outside of the marsh. Although the sounds, smells, wildlife of the marsh is comfortable and familiar, Gia really wants to spread her wings. Soon her quiet life will be turned upside down and the change she was looking for will turn out to be more than she could’ve imagined. Gia will have to grow up very quickly to protect her heart and those she loves.

This book ripped my heart out. Beautifully written story of a girl growing up in 1965 and her struggles having too grow up too fast. The characters are written with a painful beauty and truthfulness that is amazing.
Giving this book a 5 star rating

Thank you Netgalley and Lake Union Publishing for a copy of the ARC. All opinions are my own.

Coming of age in mid sixties...Gia wants life to stay the same, hang with her brother and cousins. Go out in the marsh, but times are changing and things are changing...will the changes destroy families, ways of life. Can Gia weather the storm?

A Frenzy of Sparks is about a family which is ultimately torn apart when their son becomes a drug addict and their world spins out of control. His actions affect not only his immediate family but everyone around them. Set in 1965, the book reflected the different times and how people will fight to save one of their own. It was at once heartbreaking and heartwarming. There were a number of points that were difficult to read and get through, but despite this there was a feel that reminds the reader that there is hope, goodness, and light in the world, even when you are stuck in the darkness.

A story about family, love, and loss, I recommend this book. Thank you to #NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC. All opinions are my own.

The Review
Gia is 13 years old and lives in Queens with her parents, and older brother Leo. Surrounded by the extended family of her aunts, uncles and cousins, Gia is struggling to accept her place in the small world around her. As a girl, she is expected to follow the lot of all the women in her family: making house, raising babies. However, Gia wants more and feels suffocated by the responsibilities and expectations being placed on her.

Although this is the story of Gia coming of age, and learning who she really is, it’s much more than that. Her brother quickly deteriorates in to the world of drugs, and this is a very sympathetic look at the drug scene in the mid 1960’s, as well as the impact individual drug use has on a family, and the wider community as a whole.

Although I really like the concept of this story, the naïve view of a 13 year old girl unable to comprehend everything that is happening around her, I found it a bit cumbersome. It’s a very slow burn (nothing actually happens until about halfway through), there is nothing particularly gripping about the storyline itself, and I found the characters really hard to relate to.

As the story unfolds through Gia’s eyes, I found being in her head quite problematic. I didn’t especially like her, and at times I found the writing to be a little stream of consciousness. It ended up feeling disjointed and confusing in parts.

The Stars
This was a good story, and handled well; however, I can’t say I especially enjoyed it, and at times felt like I was having to plough my way through. Not one I can easily recommend, and I don’t think I’d try to author again.

This book was just okay for me. The story line seemed to drag. It was also hard to relate to the characters emotionally. The main character wasn’t particularly likable. Sorry to leave a poor review, but thank you to NetGalley for letting me read this book in exchange for an honest review.

From the author of A Lily in the Light comes a poignant story of innocence lost and what it means to grow up too fast.

I loved A Lily in the Light, but this one to me was even better. It's a very emotional story. A story that hits so close to my heart. A bit too close.

This is the story of a family. A family in Queens, NY in the 1960s. Dealing with so much. Cousins who are so close and get in trouble and finding their way in life. A thirteen year old girl who has the no worries at all yet. This year will be a big test for all of these kids. As one does bring drugs into the midst. One isn't strong enough to handle it at all. One thinks he's smart enough to be a boss on his own. They are all just stupid children in a world where things are hard enough. Nothing good can come from this. Families turning on each other. Kids hurting each other. It's a horrible cycle that won't stop until someone is dead or someone ends up in prison. Or both.

This story is so realistic it's like living it, not reading it. It's like you are in the pages with these people. Feeling the things they feel. The happiness. The sadness. The many ups and downs. What each family is dealing with and how it separates them. Where they were once so close they become distance. Secrets are kept yet each knows all. Whispers are everywhere. The horror of what can happen. What will happen and what does happen in one family. How a mother and father deal with things. How they seem to make a huge difference in their children yet to me it was just a parent being a parent and being there for the child who had gone astray. The one that needed the help while the other did good things. It's not a matter of one being loved the most. It's about not wanting to lose either.

This book will rip your heart out. It will make you weep. It's a raw and emotional story of families. Loss, love, happiness and how drugs affect each.

This story hit me hard. Right in my heart. I lost a brother to drugs. He tried so many times to stop. He had a heart of gold. The kindest person you would ever meet. But his addiction was bigger than him. It was bigger than me. It was bigger than anyone. I miss him every day. Drugs took my brother.

Thank you #NetGalley, #KristinFields, #LakeUnion for this ARC. This is my own heartfelt review.

5/5 stars and a big recommendation.

Favorite Quotes:

She had the same wiry build as Leo, the same blue eyes and slightly disheveled look, as if the wind had blown them around for a few minutes and suddenly stopped.

Window light turned dust suspended in the air to gold, making Gia almost pretty in the mirror, not movie-star pretty, but more like a mer-creature who’d surfaced to see what land was all about. She hadn’t quite grown into her nose or gotten past her fear of tweezers to fix her eyebrows, but her features were sharp and symmetrical.

“Is he sick?” Agnes scrunched her forehead. It was unusual for Leo to be home, grounded or not. Yes, Gia thought. He has an incurable case of the idiots.

The girl was chewing gum, cracking it loudly, blowing bubbles, and swallowing them back like a lizard rolling out its tongue. She was a hostess at the clam bar with Ray and liked to flirt with him even though she had more pimples than a toad, but she curled her hair and rolled a tube over her lips until they were mirror shiny. Alessandra. Gia wondered if Agnes would prefer a daughter like her instead.

“Just tell him your blood sugar’s low or you’re feeling faint. He’s too scared of women’s bodies to call you on it,” Lorraine said between bites of a fresh chocolate éclair…


My Review:

Kristin Fields hit me soundly in the feels and wrote with an astounding poignancy that put hot rocks in my throat, pressure in my chest, and sand in my eyes. She scribbled with the articulateness of a gifted wordsmith while she insightfully and perceptively imbued her cast of characters with unusual quirks and sharp edges, and detailed them with crystal clarity. She fully captured their foibles as well as the miasma of complex family personalities, unmerited favoritism, and the issues of dealing with addiction in a family member along with the accompanying complications of enabling, blind denial, and general chaos.

I was staggered by the precision and depth in which Ms. Fields molded and sufficed Gia with relatable and accessible impatience, yearning for independence, and the heightened desire for personal choices from those forced upon her by family circumstances. Gia was a thirteen-year-old tomboy who was chaffing at the constant criticism and expectations of her mother to be feminine while actively forcing her towards domestic pursuits. Gia had no interest in her mother’s womanly pursuits or indoctrination as she was interested in the environment, wanted to be outside swimming and boating, and aspired to be a scientist.

Ms. Field’s prose ingeniously inserted me into the gray matter of a sensitive thirteen-year-old who despite her naive and skewed perceptions, still saw far more clearly, realistically, and objectively than her parents. I was deeply stirred by the experiences of Gia which conjured similar feelings long buried in my own psyche of a pervasive sense of powerlessness against the rigid constraints of the strict and unquestionable expectations of gender roles and the forced adherence of odd and nonsensical beliefs as well as the resentment of undeserved male arrogance and the mindlessness of automatic female deference. And from this, a kickass feminist was born.

I was a small child in the ’60s and came of age in the ’70s and do not look back on that period with fondness. Nor would I live through those turbulent eras again for a billion dollars. While Kristin Fields is far too young to have personally experienced those tumultuous decades, her narrative and characters’ observations, behaviors, frustrations, mindsets, and the limitations of societal roles were astoundingly authentic to the times. Color me impressed but now in need of a spa day and a vat of wine to clear all this long-repressed antipathy.

A FRENZY OF SPARKS by Kristin Fields was an emotional and heart-wrenching coming-of-age story that I am glad I didn’t miss. Set in Queens in the 1960s, it follows Gia, the 13-year-old daughter of a working-class family, living on the same street as their extended family. They are the picture of a typical immigrant family until her cousin Ray decides that the working-class life isn’t for him and introduces drugs to the neighborhood…and her family. After that, nothing is the same. Initially, Gia’s age and naiveté prevent her from seeing what’s happening around her, but she knows something is wrong.
In the beginning, Gia is obsessed with the world around her and making it a better place. Her curiosity about how things are affected by humans and what they are doing is refreshing, if simplistic. She loves the marsh near her home and it is her escape and the happy place for her and her cousins. As things change around her, she wishes by turns that she could grow up faster or go back to the way things were.
This story was engrossing and unexpected for me. It was impossible to put down as I flew through the pages, my heart breaking as Gia’s world fell apart. Sadly, the story is not unique, but it is rarely been given voice to, especially so beautifully. I recommend it whole-heartedly.
#afrenzyofsparks #kristinfields #lakeunionpublishing

"She was tired of doing things adults were supposed to do. It made her inconsolably sad, like she'd woken up in the wrong part of her life."

A Frenzy of Sparks is an emotional coming-of-age story set in Queens in the 1960s. It's a very specific moment in time, when the children of immigrants are putting down suburban roots with relatives living on the same street. The men work blue collar jobs, the cousins are best friends and everyone gets together for Sunday dinner after church where they prayed their kids will do better than they did.

The story revolves around 13-year-old Gia who's anxious to grow up faster and be treated like her older brother and cousins. But when drugs are introduced into her world, everything Gia knows and loves is ruined.

@writingkristin vividly depicts the devastating effects addiction has on a family and a neighborhood. Her words capture the time, the place and the emotions of the characters so well, and my heart broke as Gia's childhood innocence and her dreams for the future are shattered. Gia's indomitable spirit and unwavering devotion to her the people she loves make you root for her and I spent the book hoping she'd end up with the happy ending many of her family members and neighbors didn't. While it's not a light read, it's a worthwhile one and it's hard not to be touched by this memorable story.

Thank you to Net Galley, Lake Union and the author for an advanced copy for review.

A beautifully written, interesting, thought-provoking coming-of-age story that highlighted some key issues and told a story of importance. A thorough pleasure to read.

I first read Kristin Fields’ A Lily in the Light last year, and fell in love with the writing of a young ballerina and her traumatic ordeals and harrowing loss. I am so grateful to have had the opportunity to be an early reader of Fields’ sophomore novel.

The Frenzy of Sparks is a beautiful young adult coming-of-age novel set in Queens borough during the 1960’s. This novel is beautifully written through 13yo Gia’s perspective on the changing times, rapid transformation of the neighborhood, and having to grow up way too fast. The narrative and prose is beautifully written and Fields’ captures the beauty of each of the characters that even the neighborhood is a character in itself including the canals and the marshes. This powerful and poignant story addresses addiction, gender roles, societal issues, and complex family dynamics.

This deftly written novel is compelling and a beautifully compulsive read I loved.

Consider adding this to your TBR!

Do you remember being a kid? Do you remember wishing you could just be a grown up so you can make your own decisions? This book sums up that feeling perfectly! 

Gia feels like she's never going to be good enough for her family and she can't wait to grow up. But then she starts realizing that things aren't always what they seem. Her cousin brings drugs into her little neighborhood and suddenly she's not in such a hurry to grow up anymore. 

Such a touching, coming of age novel. I loved reading about Queens in 1965. So completely different than it is now.

The bones of this story were good, but the reading of it was sooooo slooowwww. I ended up not liking it much at all. Sorry to say that I would not recommend unless you like slower stories.

Thank you Netgalley and Lake Union Publishing for the arc! This title was released November 3, 2020.

This is a coming-of-age historical fiction novel set in 1960s Queens heavily centered around drug abuse. The main character, Gia, longs for freedom and responsibility of her family’s boat, naive to the dangers around her. She soon gets caught up in her cousin’s shady business, clueless to what is really going on. By the time she realizes all the dangers around her, it may be too late.

This novel was so well written. Kristin Fields really captured Gia’s childhood innocence and showed the world through her eyes beautifully.

The themes of this novel are dark (tw: drugs and sexual assault), but I feel lots of people can identify with it. Definitely recommend to readers who like The Outsiders and other historical coming-of-age stories.

A fantasically written story about the far reaching effects of drugs on the 60s and how it can dismantle a family and a community.

It was a little slow to start but once it got going it WENT. I felt attached to the characters and their well-being. I think Gia lacked a lot of critical thinking skills and forethought. I think she was a little hypocritical in her actions, but I can't tell if that was a result of being 13 or the writing style.

A great read and one I would recommend to everyone!

Recently, Kristin Fields hosted Lake Union's Facebook page for the week, which reminded me that it was time to read and leave a review of her book (Frenzy of Sparks .. finally).

The book takes place in Queens (New York), in the mid 1960's. Gia is 13 yo, and she lives on the same street with her aunts, uncles and cousins. She loves nature, and in particular, the marsh, and she wants to protect (all) the wildlife that relies upon it. She also dreams of being out on the open water (alone), in the family boat. Agnes, Gia's mom, wishes Gia would be interested in cooking or sewing, things that will serve her well (in her opinion). Gia's dad is a police officer, and her older brother Leo, is all rough and tumble, and trouble. Leo wants to got to Vietnam (its more exciting then Queens). Then there are the cousins, Lorraine (beauty), and Ray and Tommy, and their respective parents, Diane (Agnes' sister and Lorraine's mom, whose husband died in Korea), and Uncle Frank and Aunt Ida. Frank is a garbage collector (Ray and Tommy's parents).

All is well until, Ray, decides to traffic drugs and then life changes for the whole family ...

Kristin Fields spoke about how drugs touched her own family, and was part of the inspiration for this book. The truth is, that drug abuse continues to affect us TODAY, over 50years since Frenzy of Sparks takes place. It devastates entire families. Fields' book is one family out of thousands. This book can help others to know that they are not alone in their struggles. It also highlights the importance of getting HELP early and from those most skilled in drug abuse.

Thank you #netgalley and @lakeunion for the advanced copy of #afrenzyofsparks in return for my honest review. #5stars

Thanks to NetGalley and Lake Union Publishing for the ARC in exchange for my honest review of "A Frenzy of Sparks" by Kristin Fields.

Gia is finally 13. It feels like a time for change, but Gia isn't sure she wants everything to change. As she, her brother, and her cousins wander their boring neighborhood where nothing ever happens, suddenly there's a spark. Gia's cousin brings drugs into the neighborhood and everything changes. Everyone is caught in the ripples and no one will get out unscathed. Can Gia bring back her life of simplicity? Or will everything be washed away?

This book was heartbreaking. A family torn apart by drugs is never pretty, and it's certainly something you can't look away from. Gia's character felt like an awkward age to deal with the fall out, but also the perfect age to create plans to fix the problem. Gia can't see the seriousness of the true problems at hand, so she does whatever seems logical to her, even if the plan is flawed.

I think that this book has a slow build. Gia is a little hard to relate to in the beginning. Her obsession with chemicals kind of makes sense considering how drugs will change her family later on, but I think he love of nature makes more sense and is more fitting to her character than the chemical obsession.

I gave this book 3 stars. It was a good read, but the slow build was too slow for me. The book picks up about halfway through, I just wanted more. In the end, Gia is interesting and her family dynamic is intense. The ending was surprising to me, although maybe it shouldn't have been. If you love a good family drama, this one is for you.