Review: Collide

Reviewed by Shelly
 

After reading the first story in the series, Offside, I was so eager to read whose story would be next.

Bobbi-Jo is the sister who was left behind to take care of the their ill father. While Betty-Jo and Billie-Jo left their small town and went out into the world to fulfill their happiness, Bobbi stayed home. I have to admire her for that.

But I had a devil of a time with Bobbi - she came off as such a spoiled little girl when she was a teenager - so used to getting what she wants; when she decided that she wanted Shane Gallagher, five years her senior, there was no stopping her. Not even Shane could get in her way. As an adult she hasn’t changed too much and unfortunately for Bobbi getting what you want is not always good for you.

Ex-con Shane Gallagher is back in town after his stint in jail. He’s come home because of his parole restrictions and he’s determined that he doesn’t want anything to do with Bobbi because at their last go around, things didn’t turn out so good for him. Well, that doesn’t work out so well for Shane because after Bobbi walks out on her wedding and ends up at the same bar that Shane is in, he decides to do the only thing he can.

I really wanted to like both of the characters like crazy, but these were two very emotionally damaged people and I couldn’t feel too sorry for them or feel for them at all. I grew very weary of the anger that couldn’t seem to be avoided especially when Shane was involved. Even though his violent nature was cured with the jail time, the underlying anger was always there waiting for someone/something to spark that match.

The relationship between Bobbi and Shane when they were younger was so emotionally volatile that all they did was fight and have sex, fight and have sex, rinse and repeat. As adults I expected to see some relatively grown-up interaction, but the relationship seems to continue to be based a lot on the sex and not enjoying each other as people. It seemed so shallow and made me wonder if either of them had an accident and lost the physical perfection that the other enjoyed – would the relationship survive?

Every time that Bobbi saw Shane it was focused on the way he looked or the way he smelled. After a while, I just started reading over the sex scenes because there were a lot of them. One of the more disturbing ones was when Bobbi and Shane are at dinner and Shane’s discovered that Bobbi was going commando (as was her norm) he started putting his fingers in not appropriate places while at the dinner table while his teenage sister, father and step-mother sat across from them – come on, that not cool.

I did enjoy catching up with Logan and Billie-Jo from the first book. Their grandfather and father were pleasant returns. As for Betty-Jo, she’s seems to have moments for clarity and wisdom in this story that I found refreshing. I’m hoping that in her story she’s matched with someone who will appreciate her because I think that out of the three sisters Betty-Jo might be the one who needs saving the most.

Happy Reading folks!

Rating: C

*ARC provided by author for review

Click to purchase: Amazon

Collide

by Juliana Stone

Release Date: January 15, 2013