Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for granting me free access to the advanced digital copy of this book, as this book has already been published, I will not share my review on Netgalley at this time.

Theodore Beaumont started as King of the kids. He had his family reputation to live up to, but life at the top could be lonely. Years later, events have seen him go from top to bottom and back to respectability. His emotions have traveled the same journey, leaving behind a broken heart and family – though he is proud to be a good dad.

Jack Gardner started at the bottom of the pile – the one everyone looked down at. He had a family who didn’t care, but he had his intelligence and friends that helped. Years later, events have seen him rise through the ranks, but at a cost. What he thought he wanted, what was thought would make him happy, didn’t – but he was proud to be a good dad. He, too, has regrets, lost love, and a broken family. He fears it is too late to repair the damage.

Jack and Theodore lost each other, but in mid-life, could they change their sad past for a happy future?

This is a story that I had high hopes for. The arc of enemies to lovers is well-trodden, with plenty of opportunity for angst-filled scenes and steamy reconciliations. Done well; they can be outstanding. The premise behind this story had great potential – family pressures/backgrounds, recognizing sexuality, etc., getting in the way of young love. But the format and other factors turned a story I desperately wanted to like into a tale that wasn’t my cup of tea.

The story is told in the third person, from the viewpoints of Theo and Jack, though there were times when this wasn’t clear. Technically, too there were times when the tense of the writing was ambiguous, with plenty of past tense wording mixed with the odd, tonight, and now. Nevertheless, given how early I received the manuscript, it may not be the final edit, so I am happy to give some leeway.

Chapters were a combination of past and present events, but with no date reference or change in font to show a clear difference – it took some time to realize which time zone I was reading. This regular ping-ponging between periods significantly interrupted the flow of the story – though I got why they existed. Also, habitual unfinished sentences popped up everywhere with irritating frequency. I get that this technique is used to increase anticipation. However, they appeared so often anticipation turned to irritation which morphed into outright anger to the point of me shouting expletives at my laptop – pleading for at least one sentence to be finished or at least without interruption. Subsequently, it overrode any potential enjoyment.

Theo and Jack were victims of their circumstances and upbringing in their young lives, being rather evil with their biting, eviscerating encounters. In mid-life, they have been around the block. Both still need something, and deep down, they know what it is, but there’s a lot of baggage to sort through (including more biting self-protecting encounters) before they get their HEA. A hefty proportion of the story focuses on those past events instead of, letting them have their airtime before finding a way forward – which made the end somewhat abrupt, too. They also have friends who seemed to recognize what they didn’t – so why they didn’t say so at the time, I don’t know. Here there was one character that I did like – Genni.

I felt this story had great potential, but the format needed reconstruction.

My review for this book is coming extremely late (months after I read it) due to many changes in my life but I feel it's also partially due to the fact that it simply didn't impress me and I do not enjoy leaving bad reviews as taste is sibjective.

When I picked this book, the general plot seemed to be something I was going to enjoy but, sadly, it became obvious quite quickly what I was actually reading wasn't an original story per say, but what must have originally been an Harry x Draco fanfic that was reproprosed to be this book. Don't get me wrong though, I belive that could have still worked out quite well and other authors have managed it but, for me, All The Way Happy read as fanfic all the way through. Once I realised the Harry Potter AU base to the story I just couldn't desingage from it and it felt many plots points and characters weren't explored as deeply as they should have due to leaning too much on the reader having prior knowledge.

I feel if the author had put in more depth to the story and made the characters more of her own I would have enjoyed this story a lot more as I still did enjoy the overall plot and love an happy ending. (However I do feel the story did feel unrealistic at times but if you are looking for something that isn't too serious, then this is for you!)

My first reaction when I finished All the Way Happy was mixed. Although I liked where the characters ended up, I wasn’t sure I was happy with the way that they got there. If relationships are built on trust, the one between Jack and Theo didn’t have much of a foundation.

On the other hand, I adore second chance romances – especially those that are based on people growing into totally different individuals. Theodore Beaumont was a perfect example. Jack wasn’t sure he should trust this new version of Theo. He also didn’t know if he could survive another heartbreak like the one he experienced years before. Some things are worth the risk though.

Be forewarned, the formatting of this one can throw you if you’re not paying attention. The story isn’t told chronologically, but in spurts between the past and present. It didn’t bother me too much, but it did keep me on my toes – at least until I got used to the time frame switches. 😉

If you love queer romances with lots of mutual pining and great physical chemistry, this is the one for you!

Unfortunately, I didn’t think it had much else going for it, but it was still such a fun read, so thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing an eARC in exchange for an honest review. I’ve been holding off on posting this because of the Harper Collins Strike, so I’m super excited to finally be able to post it!

This enemies-to-lovers, second-chance romance follows Theo and Jack. They’re both recently divorced, and they’re forced to confront their long-buried feelings for one another when their sons become roommates at boarding school.

While I really liked Coltrane’s writing and the dual timeline, the novel is very clearly rewritten Drarry fanfiction, which overshadowed my enjoyment. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve got nothing against profiting off of making JKRs characters queer, but unfortunately the character development just depended too much on the reader’s existing knowledge, and didn’t stand well on its own.

The chemistry between Theo and Jack was also lacking. While the smut is alright - and there’s plenty of it in the last half - there is close to no emotional bond between the two, and I struggled to understand why they insist on being head over heels in love with one another.

In short, All the way happy was a fun and easy read, but didn’t provide the dept I’d hoped for.

I really enjoyed this story and I thought the characters were lovely. The only reason why I didn't quite enjoy this as much as I expected to, was because of the different points in time that ended up confusing me at times.

Good enough!! I will not say it was a favourite of mine, but certainly enjoyable. I do applaud the author for so blatantly writing and publishing Drarry fanfiction.

Trigger Warnings: Alcohol, vomit, thoughts of suicide, cheating, divorce, classism/elitism, parental abandonment, violence, masturbation, underage drinking, sex, child abuse, drugs, death of a parent, prison, su*c*de, blood, injury

Representation: Gay

All the Way Happy is a gay contemporary romance that time jumps to show the relationship arc of Jack and Theo. While the two boys met at boarding school many years ago, their paths cross time and time again to lead to their ultimate destiny.

I’m not sure about this book. I’ve given it several attempts but I just can’t get into it. The time jumps are also very confusing. I did finish the book but it was more to avoid dnf-ing it, rather than from enjoyment. While reading other reviews about the story, I guess there is a similar premise to a certain MLM fanfic from a certain terf but I’m not sure I see it. Whether that’s true or not, readers should be aware so they can make the decision to read this on their own.

Now about the book itself: this book has an interesting style. The writing is in prose and contains multiple time jumps. The characters are flawed and pain, making them incredibly relatable. In general, I think this book could use a few more rounds of edits. The epilogue is also very interesting, since it’s more of a “what if” scenario rather than an epilogue. Overall, this book wasn’t for me.

This book started off strong for me. I thought it was well-written, and the characters and plot seemed intriguing. Quickly, though, my enjoyment began to fade. There was a lot of back and forth through different time periods, in a way that made it really hard to follow what time period and setting you were reading about.

From the moment they met at Gwynns Academy, Jack Gardner and Theo Beaumont had a connection—albeit one forged from instant and mutual dislike. When he first met Jack, Theo recognized the hallmarks of a poor boy and loathed not only that Jack did not immediately kowtow, but seemed to not care at all. Similarly, Jack easily identified the dismissive cruelty so common among the wealthy and he simply refused to waste valuable time engaging a spoiled rich kid like Theo. Every encounter was laced with tension and a hint of danger, of violence…and something more primal that neither boy wanted to acknowledge. By graduation, Jack was every inch the exemplar student with excellent grades and a sterling sports record. Meanwhile, Theo reigned from on high as one of the most popular and well-liked students.

After school, they would have been free of each other if not for a brutal locker room confrontation that shook the boys to their cores and an unrelated family disaster for Theo. Except that instead of parting ways forever, their paths cross in Cork, Ireland. Without the trappings of social class and boarding school, Theo and Jack explore all the delicious tension that dominated their schooldays for one delicious summer. Without really confronting the source of their deeply conflicted feelings, Jack and Theo fall into a comfortable pattern of partying, connecting, and fucking. As their relationship progresses, they begin unraveling and maybe even understanding what they want and who they are. The truth about being attracted to men seems easier for Theo to accept; but for Jack, it shakes him to his core. Ultimately, their relationship gets completely and irreparably broken, leaving both Jack and Theo forever changed and perhaps not for the better. Now, nineteen years, four children, and two broken marriages later, Theo and Jack’s paths cross one more time. Theo desperately wants to forget Jack; Jack desperately wants to reclaim what he lost. But overcoming years of hurt, separately built lives, and wives, kids, and expectations may prove impossible to overcome.

All the Way Happy is a contemporary story that is a deep exploration into the enemies-to-lovers and lovers-reunited tropes. The timeline is a delightfully messy reflection of how complicated the relationship between Theo and Jack is. I liked the concept of this narrative choice; it delivers a strong sense of expectation. I feel like this is most best reflected in some of present-day Theo’s barbed comments being followed by vignettes from the past that added some context. That said, the execution was a little distracting, but more on that later.

For readers who enjoy enemies to lovers stories, I cannot think of a better set up. Theo and Jack practically hate each other from the moment they lay eyes on each other. Theo sees Jack when they both happen to be in the same store buying uniforms prior to matriculating. Like a shark smelling blood, Theo immediately recognizes Jack as being poor and makes an off-hand comment about it expressly so he can put Jack into his lower-class box. When they first meet at the academy, the spark of outright dislike is palpable. And for years, they antagonize each other, all while not understanding that it’s not entirely jealousy or hatred, but also a taboo attraction that’s affecting them. Not even the brief time where Theo and Jack are a deliriously happy couple in Cork, Ireland is entirely free of this love-to-hate-you (or at least love-to-be-cruel to you) quality. And then after the break up, the animosity goes through the roof and is a huge hurdle for the grown-up Theo and Jack to either embrace or overcome.

Of course, since Jack and Theo do fall into a wonderfully close relationship the summer after they finish school, that sets the whole book up to play with the idea of lovers reunited. I was on tenterhooks waiting to see how these two would finally, finally make up. To me, it felt like every moment of present-day narrative was absolutely steeped in Jack’s regret over their break up (yeah, for nineteen years!) and Theo’s abhorrence over the fact that he himself wants to give Jack another try (and has for nineteen years!).

For me, Theo was a character I hated to love. He is consistently cruel, even when things are at their best with Jack in Ireland. Yes, he was apparently incredibly attractive. He wasn’t just a poor little rich kid whose parents didn’t love him enough, he suffered the humiliation of his father being arrested for embezzlement. He grows up to have a kid and makes damn sure his own son had the kind of loving, supportive parental figures that Theo never had himself. Yet he is always so darn mean—especially to Jack. It made for an interesting dynamic.

Jack, on the other hand, felt immediately likable. He is and has been miserable without Theo. Jack thought he could be happy marrying Margaret, his childhood best friend whose family gave Jack the kind of unconditional love his own mother couldn’t. I so wanted to believe there was just some huge misunderstanding that led to Jack and Theo breaking up. But if one thing was clear about Jack as a character, it’s that he truly had not been ready to admit he actually loved Theo until much later in life. And despite how earnestly he wishes to make amends with Theo, to try again at being a couple, I think the story does a good job explaining that Jack kind of gets exactly what he deserves.

AND YET, there was still a hard-earned happily ever after. Bonus points for address the fact that both Theo and Jack had been in heteronormative marriages and both of those ended amicably. Theo’s marriage was more like a business transaction that was mutually beneficial to both parties and ended after the agreed upon terms had been met. Jack’s was a lot more messy because he actually married his best friend after trying and struggling to love her.

As far as criticisms go, I have two. As noted above, I liked the idea of flip-flopping between present and past. What didn’t work for me was how it seemed like both timelines were hyper focused on very narrow spans of times—just a single event or even a single moment in time. This worked great to reinforce just how much Jack and Theo really did not like one another. For me, though, this same laser focus on happenings between the MCs with an extremely narrow scope really didn’t suit that gloriously brief time they had in Cork (and even briefer experience reading about it)…yet that is the basis for all the feelings present-day Theo and Jack have.

One other quibble is about some of Coltrane’s writing quirks. The most prevalent one to me is when the end of a thought or sentence is just left dangling. For example, after Jack learns that Theo’s dad had been arrested for white-collar crimes, “[Jack] thought about apologizing, about making some kind of amends, about finding commonality, maybe, with the boy he had always hated and always—“ That em-dash is doing some heavy lifting. To wit, the next utterance shifts to Theo’s perspective, so no closure there.

Overall, I thought this was a good read. If you like stories that follow characters for extended periods of time or splice two different timelines together, then I think you’ll really enjoy how Coltrane presents the story elements. Readers who like a lot of relationship angst, and especially the kind of angst you get from a long, hard road to lovers being reunited, will really enjoy the tension between Jack and Theo as they try to figure out if there is a future where they can be together again.

Rating: 3.5 stars

For such a short book, it took me an unbearable amount of time to even get 40% in, and after trying to force myself to read this, I'm just calling it quits.

All the Way Happy had an interesting premise with the promise of wonderfully flawed characters and an overarching story of healing, but ultimately, it fell flat for me. I wanted to keep reading because I was curious to how these characters' arcs would pan out, but I couldn't bring myself to care about them, their pasts, or their plans. If that was my only issue with the story, I probably would have been able to finish it, however the writing style was not for me at all. Nearly every page has sentences that are just cut off mid-sentence. If it had only happened periodically, I might have let it slide, but it was so frequent that it almost immediately began grating on my nerves. There's also just a lot of very odd descriptors. Describing the "fur" of a character's eyelashes was certainly a... choice.

Anyways, this story might yet find the readers it's meant for, but it definitely was not for me!

I see from other reviews that people were turned off by the thinly veiled Draco/Harry fanfiction aspect of this and I don't see why. The similarities were there but I enjoyed the story more for it.

Theo was a bully and horrible to Jack the entire time they were at boarding school. Jack was poor, attention starved, and desperate for a better life for himself. After a nearly perfect summer together after graduation, they don't see each other for 20 years when their sons are roommates at the same school.

I wish desperately that this book would have had date indicators on the chapters because we moved from 20 years ago to today, to week ago, to years ago with only context clues to guide the way. I had a hard time with a few chapters to see whether we were in the present or in the middle of a flashback. I did appreciate how they both ended up making choices that felt the most genuine to themselves as adults.

Thank you to Netgalley and Carina Press for a copy in exchange for an honest review. My opinions are my own.

3.5 stars rounded up

I always wish I could know ahead of time that a book with be a split history/now kind of deal. While the story IS enjoyable, I find the constant back and forth distracting for my ADHD brain. Further, if it were me writing, or maybe giving a bit of writing direction- if an author were to do that style of writing- I wish they would stop that halfway through and then continue forward in time from 50% on. I just feel that need to want to move forward and grow with a character that this style of back/forward misses.

This was an emotional journey and not necessarily the journey to happy I was expecting, which isn't bad, per see, but just not what my brain was thinking. I typically don't go for split past/present or high-angst books, so this was a bit of a departure for me. I'm not saying it was bad but just different.

I was trying to keep an open mind but also perusing the other reviews, it was quite obvious to most of us the Harry/Draco fanfic crossover was fairly strong even though it was edited to not be a direct amalgamation of the HP 'verse.

Overall, the story was entertaining. I wish we had more than a chapter of "after" so we could see Jack and Theo develop and grow together and how they integrated their families together, et al.

*ARC provided by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.*

What initially grabbed me about this book was the plot - two boys meet in school, hate each other, fall in love, leave each other, and 17 years later as their sons are enrolling in the same school, meet up again.

HOWEVER ... this story is cloaked in memories, events are alluded to and not fully discussed, one of the MCs' internal dialogs will start down an interesting path, only to abruptly end with little information to further the story, and so on. Once I got to around 75% of the story, it seems as if - for the first time - the story existed in the here-and-now rather than as a flashback.

I particularly found this frustrating as we readers never really get the full picture, and little in the way of character development. Jack is poor, Theo is rich. Theo is a nasty piece of work (for "reasons" ....) and Jack has "issues". Each man was married and have children, but the boys are basically just a plot device to get the two men back together, and the ex-wives are wafer-thin character-wise.

I would welcome the opportunity to read more from this author (this appears to be a debut novel) as I generally liked the raw ingredients but felt the soufflé fell flat. 3 stars.

Kit Coltrane’s All the Way Happy is an enemies-to-lovers story that spans twenty years. I liked the premise – two men who are meant to be together but whose paths diverged for various reasons finding each other again – but I came away from it thinking that what I’d read wasn’t really a romance, despite the eventual HEA.

The story begins when the two protagonists, Theo Beaumont and Jack Gardner, meet on their first day at Gwynns Academy, the prestigious Baltimore school they’re both attending, and take an instant dislike to each other. Theo comes from money and has been brought up to believe he’s better than everyone else and entitled to whatever he wants; Jack has a scholarship place and is, of course, someone Theo feels bound to look down on. When Jack makes it clear that he doesn’t give a shit who Theo is or where he comes from, Theo is furious – but afraid as well. It’s the first time he’s ever been spoken to like that, and the first time someone has seen past the polished veneer of money and expensive clothes.

Nineteen years later, Jack and Theo, now fathers themselves, meet again when they take their sons to Gwynns and help them get settled in, unprepared for the discovery that Jasper (Beaumont) and Will (Gardner) are to be roommates. They don’t do much other than acknowledge each other’s presence and that’s that – or not, because seeing each other again brings back a shedload of memories and feelings both of them have worked hard to forget. But a few weeks later, Jack sends Theo a rambly text asking if they can meet for coffee – because their sons are roommates – to exchange emergency details and be prepared for possibly awkward social situations in the future. Theo doesn’t reply – can’t reply – not straight away, but he can’t forget it either. Eventually he sends a terse, two word response agreeing to meet.

The story unfolds in alternating PoVs and three timelines (at school, four years later and present day). Each chapter contains a section of the current day story and a flashback to past events – the structure works well and I liked it, although I realise that flashbacks aren’t everyone’s cup of tea. The only issue I’ll point out as potentially problematic is that in the copy I read – which was an ARC – the jumps between the two timelines are only marked by section breaks; there are no timestamps or obvious differences in font (such as italics) and because not every chapter follows the same format (it’s not always ‘present’ followed by ‘past’), when I began a new chapter, sometimes it wasn’t immediately obvious which timeline I was in.

I liked quite a few things about the story – although as I said at the beginning, it’s not especially successful as a romance. It goes to some dark places – both Theo and Jack were physically abused by a parent – and Theo, in particular, is a mess who seems to be screaming silently the whole time. The author’s prose style is often lyrical and quite beautiful, and she writes angsty heartbreak really well. I liked Jack and Theo’s relationships with their children (Jack has three, Theo, one) and their exes and I enjoyed the pivotal section that fleshes out the hints as to what happened between Theo and Jack after school when they find each other in Ireland and have a passionate but short-lived affair. But I had to adjust my expectations as to the romance, because while there’s an HEA and the focus is on the two leads and their relationship, we never actually see them fall in love. It’s clear early on that their mutual dislike is born of an uneasy and unacknowledgable attraction, but there’s no real progression from that initial ‘I hate you but I fancy you’ to the love we’re asked to believe they feel by the time their affair ends. I felt as though I was expected to take their feelings for each other on trust. And their second chance romance is very poorly done. The thing I enjoy most about the trope is watching the protagonists fall in love all over again, but with the people they are now rather than echoes of who they were – but that doesn’t happen here. Jack and Theo spend hardly any time together in the present day sections of the story, there’s no real romance and there’s no indication as to how these men in their late thirties with divorces behind them, kids, and messy lives are going to make room for each other, how they’re going to adapt and grow together. The characters are not well fleshed-out so it’s hard for readers to become invested in what happens to them, and the little emotional conflict in the story is mainly due to Jack and Theo arguing with themselves about whether they want to be together.

As a side note: I’ve seen a number of reviews saying that this story has its origins in Harry Potter/Draco Malfoy fanfiction; Jack is poor, and has black hair and piercing green blue eyes, while Theo is posh, has platinum blond hair and a cruel, aristocratic mien. Never having read any HP fanfic, it’s unlikely I’d have spotted those similarities had I not had them pointed out to me – but it does make sense when I think about the lack of characterisation, conflict and relationship development, because if you’re writing fanfic, you’re writing about established characters readers are familiar with, whose relationships – or their foundations anyway – are already well understood.

All the Way Happy got off to a promising start and I did enjoy reading it, but the romance is lacklustre and needed more careful development. I liked the author’s style and would certainly read another book by her, but preferably something less derivative where she can develop her characters and their relationship more fully.

An enjoyable and fairly fast read! I found all of the secondary characters to be vivid for however briefly they appeared, and it was nice to read about the second chance between Jack and Theo.

I thought the writing in places was quite good - especially the scenes in Ireland. But I got the feeling that all the secondary characters were quite thin, which accentuated the fact that the MCs came off more as archetypes than real people.

4 stars

This may be very obviously Harry Potter fanfic but I did not even care. It had everything I love about the dynamic - angst, true enemies to lovers, second chance romance, obsessiveness.

The structure of the book got a bit tangled - it switched between their time at boarding school, present day, and their time in Cork - and it never really made sense why it was switching when it did. I enjoyed all three time periods but i wanted to re-order it sequentially. The back stories also made the second chance/present day storyline suffer. You could feel their build up in the Cork story but the present day completely lacked the build up from re-uniting to getting back together and building a new life. It was 20 years later! I needed way more from it.

The epilogue also made zero sense since it wasn't an epilogue but a "what if" scenario? The actual epilogue was the chapter prior and it should have ended there I think.

All this being said, it absolutely had the feels and angst and dramatique of a harry/draco fic and I was here for it. Definitely worth a read if you enjoy that dynamic but if your experience is anything like mine you will spend a lot of time looking for the parallels like a spot the difference puzzle. If you can get past that you will vibe along and have a great time.

As other reviewers have noted, this is very much just a Drarry fic reshaped into original fiction. Which was one of the main reasons I requested an arc. Drarry is my first ship and the ship most dear to my heart, even after 20+ years of shipping them. So this book should’ve been a slam dunk for me.

I think that might’ve been the error here. These tropes and writing work in fanfic because the readers are invested in the story and the characters. It doesn’t quite work here because well I was never made the core. There are many novels that start out as fic and are reshaped into something beautiful. I know because I’ve read them. That just didn’t happen here. I never <I>cared</I>. We all KNOW drarry are enemies because there are 7 books showing that they are. Jack and Theo? I just never bought it. It felt forced and contrived. I’ve read this numerous times as drarry fic and loved it but it just felt empty here as original fiction. Maybe because it felt more like find text and replace with names and locations.

Ultimately it’s not a bad book and you might enjoy it if drarry has never been on your radar. But if it has, I suggest skipping. Read a fic on ao3 instead.

All the Way Happy is most definitely a Harry/Draco fanfic style enemies to lovers romance, and that just ultimately didn’t do it for me. I never really felt like I connected with Theo & Jack’s character’s or story at all