Collide

Collide, Book 1

By: Gail McHugh

Narrated by: Mary Kowal

Length: 11 hrs and 42 mins

Publisher's summary

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.

Narrator almost ruined it for me

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.

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

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.

Great Book.

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.

Absolutely GREAT book!! I wish there was more!

What did you love best about Collide?

This book has got to be one of the best books I have gotten since I became a member. I hope Gail McHugh writes more books like this. Collide was a great story, it had the romance and it really made me laugh at times too. Gavin Blake had some really good comebacks when he met an old Flame that Emily used to date in the past, it had me laughing so much.
This truly was a great book. I HOPE THERE IS MORE!!! I loved this story!

Who was your favorite character and why?

Gavin Blake was the best character because he seemed so confident and sexy, plus he has everything going for him he is too hard to resist. Too bad it took Emily so long to figure it out though.

What about Mary Kowal’s performance did you like?

There wasn't a Mary Kowal in this book so I am not sure where this name is coming from.

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

The part of the book that moved me the most was when Gavin was in the hospital from a motorcyle wreck. It had me crying I was so upset about what was happening to him, Emily and all of his family and friends.

Any additional comments?

I am glad I got the book Collide and the Pulse book written by Gail McHugh. I wish and hope there are more to come. I could not put these two books down at all.

I would Highly Reccommend this book to everyone, it has it all romance, sex a great story line and some great laughs all wrapped up into one. I will be waiting for the next book to come by Gail McHugh.

Surprise, Surprise...It's a Winner that Grabs You!

I love romance, believable romance...so many have fallen short. While Gavin is so perfect that it makes you question the possibility that such a man exists..you can't help but fall madly in love with him. Sometimes Emily upsets me with her assumptions, but then you can't help but feel you would react that way yourself... and it's easier to see bad situations from the outside, than when you're in it. I have read both books and they are majorly addictive! Be ready to lose sleep when you start these books! You can't stop listening! In fact, I started listening to them again!

Predictable story line and wince-worthy adjectives

I'm certain I'm not the only person who listened to Collide and Pulse who got distracted by the strange adjectives used. It's like the author opened up a thesaurus and grabbed any old word regardless of it working. I mean...she used the word 'cavernous' to replace 'deep' for a man's voice. It was off-putting. I tried to just ignore the weird descriptive language and try to get into the story line, but even that was horribly predictable. The narrator gave some of the worst character voices I've ever heard. She also had a slight lisp and read Spanish horribly. I gave it a higher star count due to its lower price. It isn't credit worthy, but it's adequate for the price it's offered at. Back to the weird adjectives...Tiffany Reisz's main character Nora in The Siren is an erotica writer who asks her new editor "What's another adjective for thrust?" I probably got that line wrong but that was the gist (synonyms: essence, substance, central theme, heart of the matter, nub, kernel, marrow, meat, burden, crux) of it. I adore Nora and her creator Ms. Reisz and the thought of Nora's editor Zachary verbally beating the naughty adjectives out of Ms. McHugh's writing made me smile.

Gut Wrenching Ecstasy

I loved this book in paper back and I love it even more in audio🖤 #fuckinggavinblake #bottlecaps #flucktheyankees.
From the 1st chapter to the last this is a gut wrenching love story that keeps you on the edge of your seat.

Enjoy!🙌

Make it make sense.

I really wanted to like this book. I mean I really tried. This was just so frustrating. And not really in a good way. I love me some great angst but I wanted to slap Emily.

I won’t give spoilers but my GOODNESS! I feel like half the book would be solved if she just grew some balls. By the end of it I didn’t even want them together. I just wanted him to move on and do better.

PERFECTION😇😍💖👏

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.

2nd round was just as good!

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!