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Collision

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She wouldn't bend to his proud demands.

From the moment Selena literally bumped into brilliant film director Max Heger, she was drawn into a dangerous courtship—one she desperately tried to escape. She wanted no part of Max's glittering, artificial world—no matter how much she wanted the man himself.

Undaunted, Max ruthlessly set out to prove he was a force to be reckoned with. But he hadn't counted on Selena's withering response.

The resulting explosion of events left Selena filled with a thirst for revenge...and a heart that ached to love.

187 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published June 1, 1981

3 people are currently reading
177 people want to read

About the author

Margaret Pargeter

104 books73 followers
Margaret Pargeter was a popular writer of 50 romance novels in Mills & Boon from 1975 to 1986.

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5 stars
13 (12%)
4 stars
26 (24%)
3 stars
33 (30%)
2 stars
22 (20%)
1 star
14 (12%)
Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews
Profile Image for KatieV.
710 reviews494 followers
March 4, 2015
Well, I will have to admit that these two crazy kids deserved one another. They were both annoying morons.

Selena is a sullen, sulky 19-year-old and Max is a sullen, sulky 35-year-old film director. He falls in insta-lust/luv and pursues her very aggressively (read: stalker). Selena is always bratty and never up front about anything. She's always lying to sound sophisticated and doing the stupidest things. Like leaving a party with the H when she doesn't even know his name.

Anyway, these two dysfunctional love birds bicker for about half the novel while he tries to bully her into a relationship. Thing is, he'll never come out and say what he wants from her. It's all couched in B.S. like he wants her to act in his film or some nonsense.

The book dissolves into petty back and forth revenge. She thinks he raped her while she was unconscious (he didn't but left her a letter with money to make her think so since she deserved to suffer for tormenting him *eye roll*). He then shows up with amnesia at the country home where she went to lick her wounds. She takes that as an opportunity to make him her errand boy and insult him constantly. Of course, he remembers and turns the tables on her before springing a surprise wedding.

This was a great premise for a trainwreck, certainly had LOTS of crazy from double vengeance to amnesia - but I hated both the H and h. So annoying.
Profile Image for StMargarets.
3,204 reviews630 followers
July 3, 2021
First collision: Heroine steps off an elevator in a parking garage, runs into the hero. He kisses her. She pushes him away and he breaks his wrist in the fall.

Second collision: They meet at her actress cousin’s party. He takes her out to a club and his home where she sleeps until the next morning.

Third collision: Hero offers her a walk-on part in his movie and threatens her cousin’s role if heroine won’t agree.

Fourth collision: Hero has heroine and cousin stay for the weekend at his country house. Hero violently seduces heroine until she blacks out. Based on the note and money he left for her, heroine thinks she’s been raped.

Fifth collision: Amnesic hero stumbles upon the remote cottage heroine inherited. Heroine revenges herself by treating him as a servant for two months.

Sixth collision: Hero’s memory returns. He blackmails the heroine into being his servant until he pushes for marriage by special license. Heroine says yes for an HEA.

As you can see, this is a demolition derby of a romance. They are both crazy and mean. Thank goodness they paired off to save the rest of the world.

Read for the crazy, not the romance.
Profile Image for Julz.
430 reviews262 followers
June 7, 2014
3.5 stars rounded up

This is about a heroine who'd rather her family become destitute and live in cardboard boxes than to take an acting job (or fur coats!) from an overly amorous, hot director who didn't have a concept of the word no. See, the h was from an acting family and a broken home. Because of all the infidelity and heartbreak she saw growing up, she swore she would never have anything to do with actors...or hot directors. Him? Well, I guess he was just used to always getting his way.

It was fun watching the slow escalation to insanity of the wrist-gripping H, while the h tortured him with her absolute refusal to give him the time of day. He kept upping the ante, even threatening the financial wellbeing of her relatives, but she didn't budge. Hell with Cousin Pearl and her career! Let her learn to type and get a secretarial job. His frustration continued to mount until we're lead to believe that there was a major non-consensual moment perpetuated during a jealous fit. It was made more trainwrecky being coupled with the h being left some cold, hard cash and a scathing letter roughly saying: thanks for letting me be first--Seeya around. Of course that meant she was ruined goods and could never even consider marriage and a family now. No little exaggeration there.

The story took a schizophrenic turn when our h takes pissed to mountainous and villainous levels when the H coincidentally showed up at her rundown cottage on the moors suffering from amnesia. She gets her revenge by belittling and denigrating the H FOR TWO MONTHS, with him tucking his tail and working his hands bloody at her command. It was bizarre how the guy's basic personality went from confident man of the world to groveling nobody. Amnesia does that? The change was so extreme that I thought it must be an unknown twin story, but then I remembered this wasn't Charlotte Lamb.

However, once Cousin Pearl also coincidentally showed up in this tiny corner of the world at just the right moment to catch them making out on the road, the old hound dog immediately got back his bite along with his memory. He gave back as good as he got and she had to take it or new little baby sibling wouldn't get new booties cause the H would have ruined her dad's career out of spite. (Her dad and cousin could suck rocks, but babies were different.) Whenever any sympathy for the h surfaced, we were reminded that she was just getting payback for taking her revenge a bit overboard. Of course, her excuse was she tortured him for so long because she was in luuuuuv and didn't want him to go. Heh! No worries there. The dude took over her little cottage and was nasty and rejecting, complete with evil glares, right up to the proposal. They definitely deserve each other.

That's the short of it. Definitely a winner for trainwreckiness and wtfery.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Profile Image for *CJ*.
5,096 reviews622 followers
September 30, 2017
“Collision” is the story of Max and Selena.. and oh what a painful read.

To summarize, Max sees Selena.
Max wants Selena.
Selena doesn’t want Max.
Max repeatedly assaults Selena while she’s halfway seduced, halfway defensive.
Max throws money at her and drives her evil guardian to nuttiness- hence Selena is now homeless.
That’s first half.
Then..
Max loses memory.
Selena makes him her man slave and repeatedly humiliates him while working him to death.
Max gets his memory back.
More assault.
Reverse slavery.
Heroine apologizing because it’s all her fault *eyeroll*
Love confession.

Honestly, I’ve read bodice rippers but this just made me uncomfortable.
This didn’t work for me at any level as I didn’t like anyone in the book.
Safe
1/5
527 reviews
October 3, 2012
4.5 stars. This is one of those totally insane old HPs, and there's something I love about the ridiculous, dramatic, and pretty much criminal behavior of the characters. The heroine's reaction to the hero's kisses and lovemaking is ludicrous. She is supposedly at the same time "on fire" and enjoying it, but is also afraid, scratching and punching the hero hard, and almost always about to faint (and sometimes fainting in the middle). The hero does something awful to her (). Then the heroine takes a long, mean revenge when the hero shows up with amnesia, the meanness not being in the physical labor she puts him through, but the emotional belittling despite the fact that he is vulnerable and pathetic. Then he regains his memory and is livid, and the tables turn. And then of course after all this terrible, quasi-criminal behavior, they resolve everything in about a half a page for their happily ever after. Ah, the 80s romance novel: chock-full of crazy, but rarely predictable or boring.
Profile Image for Raffaella.
1,947 reviews297 followers
January 5, 2022
This book was the craziest thing I read lately.
Both characters are absolutely insane and very much unpleasant to each other.
Collision is the way they interact since the first time they meet she broke his wrist pushing him!
Then he stalked her relentlessly and blackmailed her to accept a small part in one of his movies ( he’s a film director) and tries to seduce her.
The heroine doesn’t want him and I really don’t understand why he couldn’t accept a no for an answer.
She wasn’t very flattering in her continued refusal of him! Where was his pride?
At a certain point he overwhelms her with his seduction and she, innocent naive virgin, faints from the shock.
It was really exhilarating!
Then the bastard sob leaves her money so she believes they had sex.
The poor girl is shattered and she runs away, going to a cottage in a remote small town.
One night the hero turns up and ops! He lost his memory and doesn’t know who she is and who he is.
The heroine thinks she will have her revenge and treats him awfully for months until he suddenly recovers his memory and is obviously furious.
So now it’s his turn to retaliate, and he makes her pay for her abuses. Eventually he gives up and tells her he tried to find her immediately after she left his house and when he found where she was he had a wedding license and was going to propose to her, when he was hit by a car and lost his memory.
I don’t know whom I dislike most, the hero was surely a stalker but the heroine was a bitch, I don’t accept that a man who suffered and injury is abused even for revenge because he’s not able to defend himself.
She was really mean, even if she thought he had abused her when she was unconscious. And his retaliation was just too soft for me.
The title was appropriate and very gentle, it was more a boxing match where two people hit each other until one of them goes down.
There’s no future for those two, at least not together and for sure not for both of them if they stay together. One has to go…
This book is crazy and unbelievable but I liked it - one of my guilty pleasures I’m afraid…
Profile Image for Roub.
1,112 reviews63 followers
July 19, 2014
what a mind-blasting roller-coaster! and not in a good way!! want to know how two people hurt each other all in the name of love!? well, dunt miss it ! unbelievably the heroine was a first-class bitch! her level of prickliness was so high she spoiled the book. what she got to was unforgivable !and she did not redeem herself in my eyes! max tried hard to please her but lil madam was so cynical and arrogant! she did not want him and he shud have left her well alone! dat wud teach him!dunt mess wid fire, my dear! i can't believe in their HEA or dat they were in love. ok max, she's been rejecting u. so the solution is rape!? u got 2 have her, no matter what !? he's a sadistic man. if all men reacted like dat when their love is not reciprocated, imagine the high level of rape in the country!LOL.
343 reviews84 followers
July 6, 2020
Hahahaha--that was so messed up, off the tracks we go! So many good reviews for this one, so without rehashing the plot too much:

The MCs were both awful--she's a hot-and-cold judgy beeyatch and he's a pushy, grabby alpha who at least had the decency not to rape her when she passed out under the intensity of his forcible seduction but made it seem like he had and then left her an envelope full of cash for her supposed services/loss of hymen. No bueno, male protagonist! (henceforth: MP--I've decided to stop calling old skool smacky rapey alphas "heroes.")

He is apparently abducted by aliens in the wilds of Devon and given a personality transplant AND AMNESIA, YESSSS!. Unlike the heroine in Charlotte Lamb's The Devil's Arms, . He shows up battered and memory-less at the female protagonist's dilapidated inherited house and, for revenge, she verbally abuses him constantly, making fun of his appearance in raggedy charity clothes and forcing him to work like a slave for her FOR TWO MONTHS! TWO MONTHS! He's her dog (she even calls him by the doggy-like name: Nero). He's a mess, tentative and ashamed and uncertain, and she is just brutal the entire time.

He's a world-famous director who was scouting locations when his injury occurred, and his film crew eventually shows up in the area and spots him, and he recovers his memory and is out for revenge. There are some rage kisses, a slap, and punitive housework, but he relents pretty quickly and there are mutual admissions of love and a doubtful HEA for these two.

I couldn't stand either of them, but for sheer WTFery and old-skool OTT dwama, this was a fun read!
Profile Image for Chantal ❤️.
1,361 reviews912 followers
February 21, 2016
Could it get any crazier? Wtf??? They meet at a party and he wants her so he is in hot pursuit then after a few days of her saying no he makes the play and after being intoxicated one night he leaves her money for him taking her virginity. Which he did not cause that would be gross and date rape!!! He did it with revenge in his heart cause she dared say no to him and he is just awesome! Did she not get the memo? Well off she goes to lick her wounds and who does she met but our now forgetful hero who tries to remember who he is as she puts him down for being a sponge....please! This goes back and forth until he gets revenge on her blah blah blah... And on and on back and forth it seems so stupid at this point he should have just let it go. Really he was an ass deserved to get it put in his face. Maybe not that hard but she did feel like shit for a long time because of him. Just crazy!!!
Profile Image for Romy zakaria.
34 reviews
September 15, 2012
ummm this was my first harlequin presents novel .. and it's not bad .. but not great either
Profile Image for Diamond.
818 reviews
Read
May 19, 2016
سيدة الرماد

الاسماء في الترجمة العربية مختلفه عن القصة الاصلية
Profile Image for Cat The Curious.
126 reviews61 followers
January 21, 2019
The heroine is a real bitch to this guy. He made her think he took her virginity when he didn't and maybe he didn't deserve that much punishment but it was funny. I loved it. It's the only thing by this author I finished. I laughed my ass off. There it is short and sweet. I never take these little harleys seriously because most are so silly it's hard to.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Profile Image for Caroline.
Author 3 books50 followers
November 15, 2020
It was draggy and the heroine was such a bitch.
Profile Image for RomLibrary.
5,789 reviews
May 18, 2020
She wouldn't bend to his proud demands.

From the moment Selena literally bumped into brilliant film director Max Heger, she was drawn into a dangerous courtship—one she desperately tried to escape. She wanted no part of Max's glittering, artificial world—no matter how much she wanted the man himself.

Undaunted, Max ruthlessly set out to prove he was a force to be reckoned with. But he hadn't counted on Selena's withering response.

The resulting explosion of events left Selena filled with a thirst for revenge...and a heart that ached to love.
Profile Image for April Brookshire.
Author 11 books789 followers
November 20, 2014
The only good thing about this book was when the heroine bullied the hero in the last 1/3 of the story. Other than that it was kinda lame.
105 reviews3 followers
February 19, 2019
It took me a long time to get through this book because it is a bit dumb. The major chunk of the book deals with the H pressurising and blackmailing the h into working for him despite her clearly not wanting to do it. This portion ends with the H doing something really 'romantic' according to Pargeter - raping the h!

The h is horrified and runs off to another location to start the next chunk of this book. She comes across the H and is traumatised, but she realises he has lost his memory. Random, right? Then the h takes revenge by making him work while he is recovering from an accident.

The next chunk (smallest of the three) begins when the H regains his memory and decides to make the h pay for the humiliation he suffered by making her a servant in her own home, using the blackmail technique that failed the last time but won this time.

The story is dumb and underdeveloped. The h has lots of angsty backstory to pursue but they were swept aside for some reason so that the author could focus on the H and h.

My advice? Do not read it. There is no romance here. The H even slaps the h twice. Then two days later reveals his love to her. It's just stupid.
Profile Image for Z..
523 reviews
November 5, 2022
This book is so unhinged. What on Earth does Margaret Pargeter think love is?

(Other reviews have covered how weird and unromantic this book is, but one thing I feel hasn't received sufficient attention is the existence of a random side character named Primo Pleasure. He's just hanging out at parties with all the other morally dubious film people and everyone acts like it's normal to call this man Primo Pleasure. Or as the heroine says, Mr. Pleasure. Wtf?)
Profile Image for Tricia Murphy.
236 reviews3 followers
April 22, 2024
This gets a pretty good rating for an MP, because of the over the top melodrama and the way the h gets some of her own back. I loved her absolute bitchiness and utter lack of humanity in dealing with the H.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Profile Image for Debby.
1,385 reviews25 followers
February 25, 2021
This story is insane, lol

It’s like a rollercoaster ride.

Fasten your seatbelts and just let it all come to you.

I liked it. 4,5 stars.
931 reviews41 followers
Read
August 14, 2024
The bit where he had amnesia and she used him like a servant went too far in my opinion. Their crazies matched each other by all accounts but not a pleasant read for me.
364 reviews7 followers
January 21, 2021
"Η ώρα της τιμωρίας"- Μάργκαρετ Πάρτζετερ Συλλογή Καλοκαιρινά Άρλεκιν. νούμερο Σ.Π.2 Έτος έκδοσης 1981.

Εκείνη τη βροχερή νύχτα η τύχη χαμογέλασε στη Σελίνα. Ο άντρας που χτύπησε την πόρτα της, ζητώντας βοήθεια, ήταν εκείνος που κάποτε της είχε φερθεί με απίστευτη σκληρότητα, εξευτελίζοντάς την. Στεκόταν μπροστά της πληγωμένος, με χαμένη μνήμη. Τον κοίταζε χωρίς οίκτο, μέσα της να φουντώνει η επιθυμία για εκδίκηση. Τώρα που ο Μαξ Χέγκερ βρισκόταν στο έλεός της, θα έκανε ό,τι περνούσε από το χέρι της για να γνωρίσει κι αυτός την κόλαση που είχε ζήσει κι εκείνη. Τι θα γινόταν όμως όταν θα ξανάβρισκε τη μνήμη του;

ΜΟΥ ΑΡΕΣΕ ΠΟΛΥ- ΠΟΛΥ!!!!
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