I love hockey romance a lot! This was one of the better ones I've read too! I will definitely be rereading to physically annotate!

Oh my Lordy! So I went into this thinking it was going to be another cute little hockey romance! Oh man don’t judge a book by its cover. The spice and dirty talk was delicious!! Aiden and summer have this will they won’t they banter that is to die for! And don’t get me started about the filth that comes out of Aiden’s mouth!! I love it!

5/5 ⭐️
Spice: half jalapeño half Serrano

If it wasn’t for being in nursing school I would have finished this faster! Ahhh I can’t wait to read more book by Bal

Such a wonderful read!! I've now realized I'm a sucker for brainy girls and sporty boys being paired together. But this was such a delight and I enjoyed seeing how Summer and Aiden's relationship progressed. I also liked how Summer was honest early on with her father being a pro hockey player/ coach ad even more how Aiden didn't use that to his advantage. The future scene at the end was so precious! It warmed my heart seeing them together. Looking forward to the next book! Thank you so much to Bal Khabra, Berkley and Net Galley for the ARC!

3.5⭐️
sorry y’all… i wanted to like this more! The cover is gorgeous and I was happy to support another BIPOC Indie author but… whew chile😅 WHIPLASH!! of the emotional kind is what you’ll experience reading this. To be honest the FMC is what annoyed he literally the entire first 3/4 of the way through the book. The MMC Aiden? Yes, perfect, sexy, lovely, everything and more and quite frankly Summer doesn’t deserve him.

I finally started to enjoy the last 20% of the book but like dang… really? it took that long for her to make her mind up about him!? So, yeah it was just too much back and forth for me regardless of the reasons. But glad she finally decided to be with him! Overall the writing is excellent, it’s just the plot that wasn’t doing it for me 😭

Collide by Bal Khabra
Release Date: September 23, 2023

Pages: 395

Off the Ice:
🌀Collide
🌀Spiral

Format: 📱

What to Expect:
🖤College Romance
💙Contemporary Romance
🖤Dual POV
💙Enemies to Lovers
🖤Forced Proximity
💙Found Family
🖤He Falls First
💙Hockey Romance
🖤New Adult Romance
💙Reverse Grumpy/Sunshine
🖤Rom Com
💙Slow Burn
🖤Sports Romance

Book Description:
An ultimatum from her professor thrusts Summer Preston into an unexpected collision with hockey captain Aiden Crawford. She’s caught in a delicate balance between fulfilling her lifelong dream of becoming a sport psychologist and veering far away from this god-awful sport.

For Aiden Crawford, being the captain of the college hockey team has its perks, except when a reckless mistake by his team threatens to jeopardize their entire season. Consequently, his coach nominates him as the subject of a research paper. It's the last thing he wants to do, especially since the girl leading the project looks like she could wield his skates as a weapon.

Summer can't stand his blasé approach to life, and Aiden doesn't understand her uptight, scheduled one. They are off to a rocky start, and provoking each other is what they do best, but defeat isn't something either of them is willing to accept.

Ratings:
FMC: ⭐⭐⭐
MMC: ⭐⭐⭐.5
Plot: ⭐⭐⭐
Spice: 🌶️🌶️
Overall: ⭐⭐⭐.25

BWBH Review:
Positives:
For fans of Icebreaker
Decent banter

Not So Positives:
A lot like Icebreaker
An average hockey romance
Kind of predictable at times
FMC felt more mean that grumpy

Thank you to Bal Khabra and NetGalley for the ARC.

This was a cute story! I liked that the heroine was getting her Ph.D. in sports psychology. As a psychologist, this is really interesting to me. I loved her dedication and determination. I also loved the hate to love vibe between these two! It was cute and enjoyable. Overall, a good read! 3.5 stars!

This was such a cute book! I thought Summer and Aiden’s chemistry and dynamic together felt real and you could tell how much they meant to one another. Also, Aiden remembering small details had my heart melting. He is so in love with Summer!! I really liked reading this and seeing how their relationship developed.

this is MY KIND OF ROMANCE 🥰🔥🏒 she’s driven and focused on getting into grad school, he’s a flirt and captain of the hockey team. she hates hockey, but it turns out he’s who she has to work with to get her research done for her application. there’s simmering tension, a lot of pesky provoking, and of COURSE underlying attraction. nooooothing to see here… 😏

read this in one sitting and loved it and can’t wait for book #2!

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️— really liked it! #radfourstarreads

I wanted to like this book so much more but unfortunately it just wasn’t for me. I can definitely see people enjoying this, especially those that are extreme fans of hockey romance but for me, this book just felt so long for no reason.
I don’t want to just fully badge this book because like I said, I do think it was more a me thing than the actual book itself. While I did find the writing slightly immature in the sense that it was very wattpad-ish, I am someone that can still find that enjoyable in books but for me this just wasn’t it. I feel like this book could’ve used more editing honestly like it felt very clunky at times but also like there were areas that were just not explained at all like, what did Aiden even contribute to her research?? Just like to make one random point lol I also like do you understand that summer hated hockey but I feel like there was literally no mention of hockey in this “hockey romance”.
Anyway, despite my issues with the book, I did actually enjoy a lot of it. I thought the banter between the two of them was really fun and I was laughing out loud a few comments that were made. I feel like this book kind’ve felt like a mix between The Deal and Icebreaker.
Overall, I feel like I just kinda feel indifferent towards this book. I don’t really think I’m gonna have that much of a lasting memory of it and I’m not super interested in continuing though I did really like the friendships that were going on, I can definitely see myself enjoying reading about them but idk I don’t think it’s a main priority of mine to continue. I did enjoy this one for the most part but I probably wouldn’t recommend this hockey romance over other ones I’ve read.

*Thank you so much to Berkley Romance and team for an e-arc of this book! All opinions above are 100% my own!*

College hockey romance at its finest!!! I love Summer and how headstrong she is, how passionate and determined and steadfast in her convictions and I love Aiden for the way he loves her in totality. This is a standout of the year for me and I cannot wait to read EVERYTHING from Bal Khabra in the future!!

Did Not Finish.

I seriously ran to download this one when I saw it was being re-released by Berkley. I had seen it all over the gram when it was indie and it had so many things going for it.

🏒enemies-to-lovers
🏒hockey!!!!!
🏒golden retriever MMC
🏒desi/POC FMC

Unfortunately, Summer is a real drag. She’s immature, rude, and downright mean at times. I don’t understand why Aiden was so obsessed with her. And frankly—Collide gave me some PTSD flashback reminders of Icebreaker (another hockey romance that let me down!).

Thank you to Berkley for the eARC and PRH Audio for the free audiobook, but sadly this one was not for me.

Canadian author 🤝 hockey romance
im a sucker for hockey romances and this one was super good. i enjoyed the characters and the storyline

I was never really a sports romance girl but this was a pretty good time! This was very cute and sexy I enjoyed my time with it.

First I want to give a thank you to NetGalley and Bloomsbury for the ARC of this book! It is greatly appreciated.

I rated this at 3 stars because it was very average for me. I really love a sports/hockey romance and I definitely love a man who is going to yearn but this was just a little too cheesy for me at some points and felt sometimes like I was reading a fanfic on Wattpad. I did really love the two main characters and I loved their story together, there were just some parts of the book that made me cringe.

There's also a LOT of side characters, which is usually a given with sports team books, but that's one of the harder parts of reading a book with this kind of trope. I'm sure that is going to play into the fact that this is a series, so there will be books about the other side characters, but sometimes it's just hard to keep up with who's who. One honorable mention is: no third act break up. Thank God!

Read if you love:
- dual POV
- hockey/sports romance
- he falls first
- jealous pining
- grumpy/sunshine

this was such a cute and fun read!! i love hockey romance so i had to pick this one up and ended up loving it (as expected).

RATING: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
SPICE: 🔥🔥

I loved this book in indie version and I love it in trad version. I’m a hickey romance Stan, and college hockey romances are one of my favorite things. Aiden and Summer did not disappoint. Their banter was bantering the whole time and let me tell you, I will always fall for the cinnamon roll. Every single time!

TROPES
✨ Hockey Romance
✨ He Falls First
✨ Cinnamon Roll MMC
✨ Grumpy (her)/ Sunshine (him)
✨ Close Proximity

Aiden is the hockey captain who takes the fall when his team gets in trouble. Ans that leads him to working with Summer who is a research student. Summer has high walls and wants nothing to do with him, but they need each other and so they figure out a way to make it work.

I love the grumpy FMC, and Summer was no different. she is guarded but watching Aiden get her to let him in was such a great read. Aiden is just ooey gooey and a complete nurturer. I really fell for him.

This one has great vibes if you like banter filled college romances and has some good spice. For a debut (which I read when it was first released) this one has great style, good characters and is an easy and fun read!

This book reminded me very much of The Deal (which is one of my favorite hockey romances) mixed with Icebreaker. Reverse grumpy/sunshine. i Genuinely like the characters (especially the side characters) and can't wait to continue the series as interconnected hockey romance can do no wrong.

Thank you to Bal Khabra and Netgalley for the advanced readers copy of "Collide". This read a lot like Hannah Grace's "Icebreaker" to me, as the cover and hockey romance premises were really similar. I think if you liked "Icebreaker", chances are that you would really appreciate Khabra's "Collide" as well. I loved that Summer was a sports psychologist, because I am also studying psychology and it is a breath of fresh air to have a FMC that is a psychology student too! Her character got on my nerves sometimes, but I think that's just something I encounter a lot in general with rom-com novels. This was a great palate cleanser for all of the horror and thriller books I have been reading lately. Super fluffy, lighthearted, and fun!

this book could’ve used so much more editing. the writing felt clunky, there were so many inconsistencies with the story and the characters backstories, the pacing was all over the place and the whole project thing was glossed over. like what did aiden contribute to her research?! i honestly don’t know what his whole purpose was bc it was never expanded on even tho that was the whole premise towards the plot. i wanted to see what data she was inputting towards her paper but it was pushed aside and it never rly got mentioned again.. and for a hockey romance there was barely any hockey lol.

I’m actually so pleasantly surprised by this one. I completely understand the hype for it. It was so cute and so funny. I loved Aiden so much???? Their banter was incredible and just the right amount of hockey was thrown in. I will 100% be continuing this series when book 2 comes out!

The only reason it isn’t a full 5 star read is because I found it almost becoming a little too cheesy at the end for me but that’s okay I still loved it. 🥰