Collide is an adult sports romance novel by Bal Khabra that was originally self-published before being picked up for traditional publishing. (Which might be why you've heard of it before).
Summer Preston is working into getting into a grad program for sports psychology. When she is given an ultimatum by her professor that leads her to having to interact with the one sport she hates more than anything, hockey.
Aiden Crawford is the captain of Dalton's hockey team, with his contract already signed for the NHL. When his teammates get into trouble after a party, he takes the blame. Instead of getting suspended, his coach tells him to participate in a study for a student's assignment, he is reluctant but willing to do anything to continue playing for his senior year.
Summer, already mad about her change in plans, is not happy to be immediately greeted with a grumpy Aiden. But as they start to meet for tests and other parts of her project, Aiden starts to get more flirty and Summer starts to feel her walls around hockey crumble. As her project continues, her ex and competitor for the opening starts to think she is getting distracted but Summer isn't sure.
After a deserved night out, Aiden tries to help Summer find a guy to hook up with, even when he wishes it was her. After sharing a kiss and waiting a while to share more, Summer starts to wonder if everything she felt against hockey was silly, or just based around the one person who ruined her for it. They start to grow closer, with a few others bumps in the plan, they start to become more than just two people working on a project and start to become bigger parts of each others lives. The issue is Summer will be staying at Dalton at the end of the school year and Aiden will be headed to Toronto to play in the NHL. Their relationship feels ready to end as soon as its began, even if Summer wasn't ready for it to be a fun relationship yet.
The one thing about this novel that stood out compared to other hockey romances is the fact there are POC character both with Summer and from some of the hockey players. Its not super common both in fictional and in the real life sport. I enjoyed Summer's motivations for a lot of the book, though some of her anger felt like something that could have been talked through sooner at times. I know her anger towards her father and hockey in general was related, but I think seeing their relationship grow in the book as she starts to admit her feelings. Aiden is a really fun take on the hockey-guy trope, with a little bit of possessiveness and some charming features that he uses on Summer quite a bit.
This book was a fun take on the hockey romance novels, and I'm excited to see what else the author writes in the future. Definitely a lot of hockey books out there now and I think this is one of the better ones.
It was a 3.5/4 out of 5 stars for me.
The trad pub version comes out May 20, 2024!
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