Sparks Like Stars starts in 1978 Kabul, Afghanistan and follows Sitara, a ten-year-old whose father is a high-ranking official working for President Daoud. She has a perfect life, until the night that soldiers storm the palace in a coup, killing her whole family. Sitara survives, thanks to a guard who smuggles her out of the palace and after meeting an American diplomat, she manages to escape to the US…

A witty, sexy book about two complex characters with a connection that tears them apart but makes them feel whole.

Eva is a bestselling erotic author and single mother to her teenage daughter, who is brilliant. Eva is intelligent, beautiful, and wildly talented. Shane is also a bestseller but of a completely different kind of book. Renowned for being a recluse, the mystery around him only makes him even more magnetic and adored by the literary world. After a chance meeting at a book event, we discover that Eva and Shane spent seven whirlwind days falling in love in June as teenagers and this one week shaped their entire lives…

I just Googled the title of Bella Mackie’s novel and am now fairly certain I’m on some sort of criminal watch list. Not to worry – I’ve learnt enough from the psychopathic but worryingly relatable main character Grace Bernard to worm my way out of any legal trouble. Tip number one seems fairly obvious: don’t write down a detailed account of your misdeeds. But then, we wouldn’t have this romp of a cynical comedy to entertain us…