Spark Books imprint: 13 books

This is a collection of life stories of people who are members of the gay and lesbian community in the Brighton area. The book is based on taped interviews with forty lesbian and gay men who spoke openly about their lives in and around Brighton. In the fifties and sixties the town enjoyed a national...

First published in 1990, Brighton Behind the Front was originally produced in collaboration with the now defunct Lewis Cohen Urban Studies Centre, in the same series as Backyard Brighton and Back Street Brighton. It brings together a collection of Brighton wartime reminiscences and documents how ordinary...

This book, produced in collaboration with the Lewis Cohen Urban Studies Centre, is all about memories of Brighton during the First World War. Through an examination of ephemera such as posters, photographs, pictures, songs and personal recollections, it portrays a collective memory of the city. Photographs...

This was first published in 1975 and was so popular that it quickly sold out. Brightonian, Daisy Noakes, tells her story from the age of fourteen, when she went into service. She gives us an insight into the life of a woman born and brought up in Brighton. Daisy documents - with humour - her inevitable...

Ava Bonifacio has always been the girl with The Plan—a life plan that would give her everything she’s ever wanted, including becoming a lawyer, a role she was sure she was born into. Sure, her determination may be seen as heartlessness, but Ava doesn’t care. What she does care about is getting...

Graduating photography student Dakota Collins is heartbroken when Luka Visraya, bassist of popular indie rock band Vicious and Dakota’s object of affection, admits he is still in love with someone else. After her one-month photography stint/school project with the band, and Luka’s confession,...

It wasn’t love at first sight. It wasn’t even lust at first, or second, or third. Alexa and Ivan are just friends—roommates, at that. For him, she’s a scheming, social-climbing she-devil. For her, he’s a stiff, boring know-it-all. Should be fun, right? Of course, things don’t ever...

Dear Universe ... can you hear me? If Pierra Calasanz-Labrador’s debut poetry collection The Heartbreak Diaries was equivalent to an “ugly cry,” this second volume is an introspective journey, a quiet voice longing to be heard. Like stumbling upon an introvert's secret diary, these fifty...

For the first time in her life, Vinnie finds herself on the brink of academic suspension. While standing up to a bully is something she’ll never regret, she has to take on additional responsibilities in lieu of punishment for the offense. This unfortunately involves working with Cholo, the...

With an overly zealous mother as her guide, 19-year-old Sam has never had problems navigating through Christian suburbia before. But, all that changes when she befriends and becomes intrigued with Clara, her widowed neighbor and the village’s social outcast. When their friendship grows into the...

Laura Bayani is the most rigid person you’ll ever meet, from her white long-sleeved blouses with starched collars to her knee-length black skirts to her three-inch high heels. While her colleagues value her efficiency, it hasn’t won her any friends. For a promotion at work, Laura is advised that...

Rae de los Santos was en route to a perfect adult life. She knew what to major in, she knew what career path she was going to pursue, and she knew who she was going to be with all the way to the realization of her dreams—until her seamless journey made a turn for the unimaginable and skidded to...

Elise Rodriguez is a 25-year-old corporate junkie who has everything she could ask for except for a boyfriend. So when her best friend dares her to join a dating website, she decides she should do at least one thing she will regret when she turns 30. No one meets her expectations better than handsome...