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Collide

Collide, Book 1

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Collide

By: Gail McHugh
Narrated by: Mary Kowal
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Buy for $21.62

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A missed first encounter....

Colliding with a second chance....

On the heels of graduating college and trying to cope with her mother's death, Emily Cooper moves to New York City for a fresh start.

While harboring secrets of his own, Dillon Parker takes care of Emily through her grief. Knowing he can't live without her by his side, he's sweet, thoughtful, and everything Emily has ever wanted in a man.

Until she meets Gavin Blake - a rich and notorious playboy who is dangerously sexy and charming as hell. Emily tries to deny the instant connection she feels, but Mr. Tall, Dark, and Handsome is not inclined to let go so easily. Recovering from his own painful past, Gavin will stop at nothing to win Emily over.

This unexpected encounter compels Emily to question her decisions, forcing her to make a choice that will destroy friendships, shatter hearts, and forever change her life.

©2013 Gail McHugh (P)2013 Brilliance Audio, all rights reserved. Contemporary Romance Romance Contemporary

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I am going to review Collide and Pulse together here since they are both available on Audible. I was glad for that because the cliffhanger in Collide was frustrating and sad.

As a love story, my heart resonated with this one because I, too, had a love at first sight experience that is now into its 40th year of marriage. That's about where the similarity between my life and Emily's life ends, but it was enough for me to know that while romance novels are generally escapism, sometimes there are some very real aspects to the stories they tell.

Overall, the story was satisfying because I like good to overcome evil and HEA's. Even though there were moments in this story that were frustrating or made me roll my eyes, there was enough realism to the story that made it a cut above the typical rich young billionaire hero falls in love with beautiful but broken heroine.

There were some details in the story that didn't make sense. Here a few examples. If Emily (who definitely did not come from money) lived in CO, why did she go to Ohio State for a teaching degree? Likewise, why did her wealthy roommate/friend Olivia from NYC go to Ohio State for a degree relating to art? Why did filthy rich Gavin live in a fabulous penthouse that didn't have security at the building entrance that would prevent people from just showing up at his front door? These are minor details (and there were more), but they bugged me nonetheless. Stuff like that detracts from my enjoyment of a story.

The story flowed fairly well, but when Emily had an awful nightmare, I thought the author dropped the ball by not transitioning into that scene. It was just dropped into the storyline in a way that felt very manipulative. I thought she could have handled it better. The story had enough emotional highs and lows without that particular flashback to the original TV series "Dallas" to be thrown in there.

As for character development, the hero (Gavin) was very well fleshed out. A reader would have to be brain dead not to fall in love with him. Likewise for the villain, which rhymes with his name, Dillon. Of course, there was nothing likable about him; it was very easy to hate him. Very black and white dynamic with the hero and villain. I have mixed feelings about Emily. I think her relationship with her mother needed more detail in order to make Emily more empathetic.

The narrator was pretty bad. She did a fairly good job when she was reading in the 3rd person or doing Emily's voice. But that's about the only praise I can give her. Almost all the other characters' voices were so annoying that it almost ruined the books for me. Her NY accent was absurd. I wanted to push pencils in my ears whenever Trevor or Fallon were speaking. There were also numerous mispronunciations of words and glitches in the sentence or dialogue flow that made her narration of the story less than enjoyable.

The sound quality was pretty bad, too. For example, I could hear the narrator inhaling deeply between sentences in many places. Somebody on the production team should have made sure that the sound was properly mixed.

Lastly, since these books are under $10 each, don't use credits to purchase them. Paying cash for them is more economical, and despite my criticisms, I think the books are worth the money.

Narrator almost ruined it for me

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This is one of those books that really ticked me off. The first 75% I was in love, ready to sing its praises, to download the sequel in actual reading format because its not available in audio yet....thank goodness I waited.

The things I loved were:
1. Alpha males galore
2. Totally hot scenes
3. I really respected the drama...in the beginning....the female lead lost her mom to breast cancer, her boyfriend helped her emotionally and physically, he even held the moms hair while she threw up....so no matter what she feels for another guy how do you ditch the man your dying mom approved of???

Then the writer just flipped a switch, the wonderful boyfriend becomes anything but wonderful.....how does a man who held a dying woman's hair while she was sick complain to a waiter about a crying baby? Huh?!?!? Then the 24 year old super hot model like female lead never had a boyfriend before this guy? Huh?!?!?

Throw in some fake made up drama towards 85% through and I turned it off with an hour ago.....ugh! Ruined a great book and ticked me off! If you like fake drama go for it, at least the hot scenes were hot.

Ugh! It was 5 stars, then 2, settled on 3.5

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I had to force myself to stick to this book because at times the narrator had just some horrible voices for the characters. Truly Bad. Then I was able to overlook the horrible accents & voices because the story was really good. It was a bit slow moving at first but then I just couldn't get enough. The author does a great job of keeping you on your toes with the love triangle. Right til the very end your heart will race wondering who will Emily chose, Gavin or Dillon.

Great Book.

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I purchased this book back in 2013, and have listened, and enjoyed it many times. I don't know why there's so many bad reviews about the narrator, to me she's perfect for this book bringing the characters to life. There are so many horrific narrators out there killing the hell out of books, but Mary Kowal isn't one of them.

PERFECTION😇😍💖👏

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I read this when it came out. Devoured is a better term. Now that I’m an Audible junky I picked this up and wasn’t disappointed! I love this story and the characters. On to Pulse!

2nd round was just as good!

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