SQUEAL. SQUEAL. SQUEAL!!!!!!! The second blog tour of the day is for one of my most favourite authors of all time, Colleen Coleman and ‘One Way or Another’! If you don’t sing that title instead of reading it, are we even friends?! I am SUPER EXCITED to be kicking off the blog blitz today on publication day of all days! Huge thanks to Bookouture for the blog tour invite, as well as the ARC. Here is my review:
Twenty-nine-year-old Katie Kelly is at an all-time low. The love of her life, gorgeous Ben Cole, took a job abroad and broke her heart, the restaurant she’d put her all into went bust, and now she works in a retirement home, cooking beige mush for the residents.
So when the opportunity comes up to work for one of the best chefs in the country – Katie’s idol – she is determined to get the job, no matter what. But then she discovers who she’s competing against: Ben.
As the competition heats up, Katie and Ben spend more and more time together, and it’s clear the old spark is still there… But only one person can win their perfect job, and Katie is going to make sure it’s her. She knows she can’t let Ben back in – or can she find a way to have it all?
A hilarious, heart-warming story about romance, good food, and following your dreams, for fans of Lindsey Kelk, Marian Keyes and Cate Woods.
What does TWG think?
I am quite sure that a lot of you reading this review, have had to change direction with their best laid plans, yes? Maybe even putting your dream on the back burner, crossing your whole body that you can pick up where you left off sooner rather than later, whilst also embarking on a journey merely to ‘pay the bills’. Of course you have – you’re human! We may feel like we have our five year plans done and dusted, refusing to believe that nothing will come and ruin that. But of course, it’s life and something is guaranteed to turn your whole word upside down a lot quicker than Frankie saying ‘Relax’!
Katie Kelly is just like you and I. For as long as she could remember, food has been her creme de le creme. Her Je ne sais quoi if you will. Whilst some people sit and daydream about Channing Tatum or Tom Hardy as they sip their morning coffee, Katie sits and daydreams about putting foam with scallops. Unfortunately for Katie, life didn’t go to plan and not only did the love of her life go off and pursue his dreams in a different country, Katie was left to close the doors of her restaurant one last time and go to work in her local retirement home.
Now, what with being a Colleen Coleman novel n’all, it wouldn’t be right if the storyline didn’t contain some sort of fairy godmother antics from the author herself, right? Hell, I want Colleen Coleman as my own personal fairy godmother, stuff Cinderella, she’s had her moment!!
Ohhhhhhhhhhh this author doesn’t disappoint! Her characters may find themselves walking on a sheet of ice for a large portion of the book, yet Colleen Coleman always manages to find a way to point her characters in the right direction without her readers thinking ‘ugh, predictable’. Seriously, Katie Kelly’s journey is far from predictable! If it was, there would be a lot of unemployed people running down the Job Centre to apply for jobs like Katie’s everything Thursday, that’s for sure!
What I loved most about this book was how energetic, exuberant, and delightful the entire storyline was. We saw Katie grow before our very eyes, feeling as though her life couldn’t get any worse yet still managing to find something deep inside which enabled her to fight…for the right….to paaaarty. Or something to that effect!
Colleen Coleman truly is a real life fairy godmother. I know I’ve probably said it more than once already, but she really is. She knows how to get her readers thinking and feeling with their hearts, bringing them characters who would hold their hand as they step inside the storyline like a chapter in their own life. I was able to lose myself in every word Coleman wrote and for me, that is what a story is all about.
I loved everything about ‘One Way or Another’, and I even managed to surprise myself by becoming a little emotional later on the storyline. This book has such a fun and energising vibe with multiple thought-provoking tendencies, I really didn’t expect my eyes to prick with tears because of that. But they did and I wouldn’t have changed it for the world. It just goes to show that Colleen Coleman knows her audience and how to capture their hearts, because she certainly captured mine.
I always thought that following your dreams was cliché, maybe even selfish. But, after devouring ‘One Way or Another’ and feeling my heart soar with unexplainable joy, I knew that following your dreams was paramount in one’s journey to happiness. Anything is possible as long as you’re actually trying. The only time it becomes impossible is if you’re just choosing to sit and moan about it instead of grabbing it by the youknowwhat’s.
Colleen Coleman’s novels always make me feel like the Queen of the world, like I can achieve absolutely anything and, whilst that is often hard for me to materialise, just the thought of knowing that I can do something because an authors eye-opening and beautiful storytelling showed me how, is such an incredible feeling.
‘One Way or Another’ grabbed me by the heart, the soul and everything else in between. I laughed, I cried, I put my hand to my chest like a dramatic old soul more than once, whilst also wanting to shout ‘YOU CAN DO IT KATIE!’. As far as I am concerned, this book is everything I could want from a book and more, deserving a rating of the entire amount of stars in the universe. Truly – five ain’t gonna cut it at all, this book is pint-sized perfection – 3 Michelin stars if you will.
Buy now from: Amazon // Kobo // iBooks // Googleplay
She spent years teaching English and Philosophy before finally taking a deep breath, scrunching both eyes shut, putting her pen to paper and vowing not to lift it again until she wrote the words ‘the end’. As a result, her first novel, Don’t Stop Me Now was born.
Colleen lives between London, Ireland and Cyprus with her very patient husband and very,very chatty twin daughters.
For chat, pics and updates visit www.colleencolemanbooks.com
The Writing Garnet 
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