Colleen Coleman

Daisy Clarke is working as a self employed illustrator in London. She was raised by a single mother who died when Daisy was a child, which resulted in her being put in a care home. She is scraping by trying to make ends meet, with a boyfriend, Ash, who wants them to buy a flat together and a current project for a boss who seems less than pleased with her work. She knew nothing of her Irish mother’s background, except that she was from the village of Innisfree and cherished a scenic postcard from there.

When handsome attorney James appears on the scene with news that Daisy has inherited a lake house in Innisfree, she travels there to sell the property to satisfy Ash’s dream and also to try to find out something about her mother’s history, including who her father was.

When I first read the synopsis of this book, I thought it a mystery. However, although there are questions to be answered, it is a romance/women’s fiction. It is a sweet, not cloying story, full of charming (and a few not so charming) characters. The descriptions of the Irish countryside are beautiful and evocative. There is a bit of whimsy here, as well as poignancy for those things we have missed in life and hope for the future that awaits us. In addition to a beguiling romance, this book is about making choices in life….weighing gains and losses involved in them, forging new bonds and finding our selves.

Thanks to #netgalley and @bookouture for the ARC.… (meer)

Please note that I received this book via NetGalley. This did not impact my rating or review.

I will never understand why the titles to some books are so long. This is One Way or Another: A totally uplifting laugh out loud romantic comedy". Honestly besides the overly long title that is not needed and some slight development and pacing issues, I liked this book. I have never read Colleen Coleman before, but I will probably check out her other titles in the future. Sometimes you just want a cute and fluffy story that doesn't make you despair in humanity.

"One Way or Another" is about Katie Kelly. She banked everything she had on running her own restaurant and in the end, things went belly up. Now she is sleeping on her best friend's couch and serving up food at at retirement home. When a chance comes up for her to compete for a title of Grand Chef which means she would get to work alongside a world renowned chef (Jean Michael). Winning the competition could get Katie's life back on track, only if she doesn't get distracted by her long lost ex also competing.

Well this is the second food competition book I read this year. I liked this one much better than the last one I read. I think because even though there is a competition, and one of the competitors acts like a jerk, Coleman does a great job of making that stuff not the central focus of this book. The central focus really is Katie coming to terms with what she wants and realizing that she has no right in holding back her family from moving on with their own lives.

I did like Katie. I will always like the underdog. She realizes that she has no one to blame but herself for her restaurant's demise (she mentions not paying attention to the money going out, the bills needing to be paid, etc.). When she has the opportunity to compete for Grand Chef, she is initially hesitant, until she gets a talking to by one of the nursing home resident's who pushes her to compete. And I liked that Katie finally saw how selfish she was being with her father wanting to move on from the family home. Katie wants to keep her father back home in a time warp though her mother has been deceased for more than a decade at this point. I felt sympathy for Katie up to a point, but really wanted to tell her to get a grip on things.

The secondary characters were interesting (Katie's best friend perked my interest) and I liked the character of Martha (the nursing home resident who pushes Katie to compete). However, as I said above, some characters needed better development. For example, Katie's ex-boyfriend Ben could just have been called lovely stand-in. We don't get a real sense of him besides Katie constantly telling us how she feels/felt about him. When we see him in the present, I just didn't get it. Same issue with the character of Jean Michael. He read like a caricature of Gordon Ramsey. I don't know if I really buy the resolution with Jean Michael either, it just read like coincidence in order to get the story moving towards a HEA for Katie.

The writing was okay, it just got a bit repetitive here and there. I got Katie's past, I understood how hard she was working, I got she was in love with Ben and wished things had been different. I really wish we had more interaction with Katie and her best friend. They were hilarious together and I liked reading about her job. I loved all of the descriptions of the food that Katie was making. If you are going to have a book centered around food, I want to feel like the character knows what they are doing.

The flow was off though after the competition bits were over. I just felt a little like the book was killing time until the end.

The ending was a little too pat, but honestly I was happy to read the HEA.… (meer)

Please see all of my reviews on my blog at www.robinlovesreading.com.

My Rating: 4.5 Stars

Lily Buckley has spent the last three years getting over a tragic and humiliating experience. She was left at the altar and has rebuilt her life. She has been at her job at the Newbridge Gazette for seven years. Things gets shaky for Lily yet again. The newspaper is floundering. As a matter fact, it may just close down. But another chance presents itself. Lily suddenly becomes acting editor in chief of the regional newspaper.

Things are certainly not cut and dried from this point on. Not at all. The powers that be have hired a team of people that includes Christopher, and he is a transformational consultant. The newspaper has a single shot of sinking or swimming. Ultimately it must be determined whether or not Lily and Christopher can work together to save the newspaper. For Lily’s sake it is to keep her job and career going in the direction that she has been focused on. For Christopher, this is a steppingstone to his future aspirations.

Quite naturally, the entire scope of Lily’s job has changed. Christopher and the team decide on a unique approach to reviving the newspaper. Lily’s weekly column will now become a four page spread with a bucket list in which tasks are completed weekly. They are extremely hopeful that this will increase readership.

Lily may be focused on the importance of saving her career, but her eyes are now open to new possibilities, and this was truly a delight. Lily experiences quite a lot while working on her bucket list. This required her to do things that she would never have tried before. While there is humor in the story, even at laugh out loud places, the story is rich with sensitivity and growth. We see the characters develop in certain ways and that makes the story very captivating.

As readers are drawn into the romance that blossoms between Lily and Christopher, it is also a very touching to see how Lily’s relationship with her mother changes. I was very interested in things as they were working out. If I may interject, I must say I was impressed by the fact that one of Lily’s favorite activities was to curl up with a good book..

I rather enjoyed how this book is marketed. It is first a woman’s fiction, then a romance. I think this is important to mention because we get to see Lily grow as a character. Yes, lovers of romance want a happy ending. But Lily’s life was once turned upside down and getting the opportunity to see her achieve personal growth was very rewarding to me as a reader. The cherry on top was the romance that was indeed part of the story.

This is the first book that I’ve had the opportunity to read by Colleen Coleman and I can definitely say that she is an author that I will follow in the future.

Many thanks to Bookouture and to NetGalley for this ARC to review in exchange for an honest opinion.… (meer)