When Love & Fate Collide is the highly emotional second book in this series continuing right after the cliffhanger of the first book. I did receive an ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review.
Update: The latest as of July 25, 2024 for the third book, When We Collide (When Love and Hate Collide book 3) - Shayla has announced it will be released on August 30th!
You can preorder from Amazon now.
Table of Contents
Book Info
Title: When Love & Fate Collide
Author: Shayla Hart
Publication Date: July 20, 2023
Category: Contemporary Military Romance; Erotica
Relationship: Features a M/F childhood enemies to lovers couple
POV: This book is told from both the female main and male main characters POV
Series or Stand-Alone: This is book 2 of 3 in this series. When Love & Hate Collide is the first book.
Length: Long - over 400 pages
Ending: This book ends on a cliffhanger with a 3rd book upcoming at a currently unknown date
Overall Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Open or Closed Door: Very open door
Spice Level: 4 out of 5 peppers - several very spicy scenes throughout the book with lots and lots of dirty talk. Even with all of the spice, this book is still plot-driven.
Book Boyfriend Material: Dean Reyes is complicated in that he can make you want to punch him in the face in one minute and hand your heart over on a silver platter the next.
Readability: Minimal grammar issues and easy to read
Themes: Enemies to lovers since childhood with military MMC
Triggers: Miscarriage with loss of fertility; injury and death of loved ones
Available On: Amazon on Kindle Unlimited, Kindle, and paperback as of this review
Synopsis From Author
Have you ever met someone and immediately loathed everything about their very existence?
I have.
Dean Reyes
The devil's most prized protégé.
And ultimately…my ruin.
I had the misfortune of meeting him when we were just five years old when the Reyes' moved onto our street and my mother forced me into being friends and playing with him.
Our friendship lasted a total of five minutes before he left me sobbing at the playground. After harshly informing me that he will never be friends with a girl and that I should never speak to him again.
Much to his dismay, his twin sister Ashlyn and I become best friends--actually, I would say more like sisters. Our families became close friends and growing up, that abhorrence between Dean and I intensified to a point we couldn't be in one another's presence for longer than five minutes without tearing into one another.
Despite his best effort to drive a wedge between Ashlyn and me, we're still going strong, living together and even studying at the same university.
When Ashlyn and I left for university, Dean enlisted in the Royal Air Force to become a fighter pilot and we've not seen each other since…until the summer of 2004, when we all came back home for the summer.
I'm familiar with the expression, 'there's a very thin line between love and hate' but never in my wildest dreams would Dean and I ever be caught dead in each other's company, let alone in bed together.
Yet here we are, tearing off one another's clothes while hurling insults at one another.
And the worst part of it all, If Ashlyn ever finds out that her twin brother and I have been discreetly hate screwing one another, I'll lose her forever.
My Review
I've read almost all of Shayla Hart's books because they have a way of giving you a front seat to a beautifully emotional story that will have you laughing and swooning one moment and crying your heart out the next.
Pros
- So much of the banter and dirty talk that I love
- Written in a way that makes you really connect deeply with the main characters like you're watching them in a movie
- It just feels like you're reading an epic love story
Cons
- I don't consider this a real con but I know some do so - this book ends on a cliffhanger and the next book isn't available yet
- Considering there was a good amount of back and forth in the first book, it was a bit of a turn off that it continued still in this second book
- This is an emotional read that will have triggers that affect some. If you're looking for a super happy positive sunshine book, you need to continue looking
- While I enjoyed the overall journey of the book I did feel it was a bit long in some parts while I wish the last couple of chapters had a bit more backstory
If you're looking for a read that will have you on an emotional roller coaster that will chew you up and spit you out this book is for you.
I haven't cried this much over a book in quite a while.
We start up right where the cliffhanger ended with the first book and the hits just keep coming from the beginning.
Without giving out spoilers, you'll likely end up mad at both main characters at different points in book 2.
I did find the whole back and forth of will they or won't they allow themselves to be happy together to drag out a bit much.
It's obvious they're still head over heels with each other and let silly things get in the way of them being together.
I wasn't a fan of how much Dean's sister's reaction played into their relationship and that part honestly dragged out a bit long for me.
Luckily, our main characters finally get their crap together at some point and things are so perfect for a while.
Jeyla has her lieutenant take her to the stars so very many ultra sexy times.
If you've read When Love & Hate Collide you know our main characters always have the other shoe dropping at some point and the last 15% or so of the book is no different. So many tears shed.
Then, the ending. Oh that ending that will leave you wondering what the eff is happening and when is the third book coming out?!
Overall, I was very pleased with the second book in this series and obviously can't wait to read the third.
Leave a Reply