This book hit me at just the right time. I needed something lite and uncomplicated. And this story nailed it! Now, like many in this genre, it is predictable, but I found myself smiling and completely enjoying it. The characters and the setting of Chesapeake Bay are wonderful!

The narrator did a great job with the accents. That is a big kicker for me. This can make or break a book for me. The Irish accent was excellent.

I absolutely love the Chesapeake Shores series. Everytime you open one of these books you visit Dear friends like Grandma Nell and her matchmaking son Mick. We Lso make new friends.

I highly. Recommend these book. You will never be disappointed.

Thank you Harlequin and Netgalley for allowing me to read this title for an honest review.

This was a good book, but it was not one of my favorites of Sherryl Woods. I've read every Chesapeake Shores book she's written, and this one didn't grab me like the others did. I don't like stories where someone always makes decisions or says things in an effort to not inconvenience other people, even though it's easy to tell that she's just making things more difficult. I'm still glad I read it because I love the location and the characters, but this one was not her strongest.

I love the Chesapeake Shores tv show and hoped that I would connect with the books, but I did not connect with this title. It would probably be better if I started with book one, so I'm not giving it a bad rating, I need to be better acquainted with the backstories.

***This review first appeared with RT BOOK REVIEWS***

Fans of Sherryl Woods will undoubtedly find what they are looking for in the latest installment of the long-running Cheseapeake Shores series. Bryan and Kiera have a flint-and-sparks reaction to each other, never making it easy for the other. Family ties and strong female friendships add to the appeal of the story, but a slower pace and a sometimes-contrived feel to town’s conspiracy to push them together may put off new readers.

SUMMARY: Kiera’s first husband left her with three small children, and her second love died of a heart attach the day he proposed. She’s not interested in a third try, but agrees to a protracted visit in Chesapeake Shores, to be near her new granddaughter and the father she’s mending fences with. She insists it’s only temporary but the perfect cottage on Lilac Lane is hard to resist, and so is the temperamental chef that she works with… and now lives next door to. While vying for authority at the O’Brien Pub, they are also juggling the complexities of having grown children. Family and small town drama surround the quiet, mature romance between Kiera and Bryan.

Coming into a series that’s now fourteen books deep can be daunting, but Sherryl Woods’ latest installment in the Chesapeake Shores series, Lilac Lane, had enough back story sprinkled throughout that I was able to easily follow along with the multitude of characters in the small, picturesque seaside town of Chesapeake Shores, Maryland as Keira Malone finds a new life with her daughter and extended family–along with a possible new love in the irritatingly aloof chef at the family’s Irish Pub.

Keira Malone struggled to raise her three children after leaving her alcoholic husband, and she even found love again and became engaged. But then Peter died unexpectedly right after their engagement, and Keira is persuaded to travel from Ireland to Chesapeake Shores to stay with her daughter Moira and her infant granddaughter Kate. While Keira is stubborn, proud, and very strong willed, she isn’t content to just play grandmother, so they convince her to stay on in the US as a consultant to there Irish Pub, O’Briens. It’s here where she first encounters chef Bryan Laramie, who’s equally stubborn and set in his ways, and their working relationship is tenuous at best with all of the changes that Keira wants to make at the pub to make it more authentic. Unfortunately for both Keira and Bryan, Moira and her husband Luke mistake their spats for sparks, and plots are hatched to keep Keira around longer than the six-month work visa that she’s obtained.

Family ties are front and center in Lilac Lane, and the ties that bind are also the ones that will meddle with your life in this case. Poor Keira and Bryan have so many people throwing them together–even when they aren’t sure that there is anything to explore between them–from Keira’s step-mother, to her own daughter and son-in-law, to the patriarch of the town itself. A good portion of the O’Brien clan thinks themselves matchmakers, whether the involved parties want to be matched up or not.

While Keira’s loss is more recent and at the surface, Bryan’s is much longer hidden. I really enjoyed finding out Bryan’s story, and the way he dealt with his long lost daughter showing up out of the blue was perfect. While their romance was a slow burn full of one step forward and two steps back, it was nice to see Keira’s personality bloom once they became involved. Bryan really opened up as well.

I give Lilac Lane a four out of five. Community and family are central to this book, and the setting of Chesapeake Shores was so quaint and visually pleasing. While the pacing was a little slow in spots, it lent itself to the unhurried pace of life in this seaside town. The romance is very clean in this book, and the only heated moments are when Keira and Bryan arguing with each other throughout the book. I really loved the cast of secondary characters and the supportive women throughout. You can read this as a standalone without any problems.

In this book Keira Malone who has been living in Ireland is dealing with a failed marriage, and then death of her fiance Peter when her daughter Moira calls her to convince her to come to Chesapeake Shores for a much needed break. Instead of wallowing and closing herself off to everyone. Keira decides this is what she needs maybe it will help awaken herself. What she didn't count on was butting heads with the pub chef Bryan Laramie. Can she find her happily ever after or will she go home to Ireland?

Bryan Laramie has been doing everything he can to locate his lost wife and daughter who left so long ago, when all is lost he finds himself dealing with Keira who has a knack for getting under his skin regardless of what he really wants. As he tries to broker some kind of peace with her sparks begin to fly all over the place and the O'Brien's see it as a new project to work on.

I love this series it's great granted I came in midway and still have to read earlier books it's such a blessing to go back to the shore and see what everyone is up too. This one didn't disappoint in the least. It pulls you in and before you know the last page is flipped and the story is told. I would love to see Ms. Woods come back and write more but only time will tell!

This is book 14 in Sherryl Woods’ Chesapeake Bay series. I have read and enjoyed all of the books in the series and this book can be read as a stand-alone without confusion but the entire series is so good, I think that you’ll want to start with book 1 – you won’t be disappointed.

The book series is about a town in Maryland that was built by the O’Brien patriarch, Mick. Mick’s main goal in life is to have his 5 children married and in love with the person he picks out of them. Once that is accomplished in the first books of the series, he starts meddling in the lives of other family members and gets help in his meddling from his children and their spouses. In book 14, it’s single mom Kiera who lives in Ireland and raised her three children. Her daughter Miora lives in Chesapeake Shores with her husband Luke O’Brien. Moira feels that her mom has given up on finding happiness and asks her to come to the US to help take care of her granddaughter. Once she arrives, sparks start to fly between Kiera and the cook at the O’Brien pub. Will Moira be able to convince her mother to stay in America and take a chance on happiness or will she rturn to her solitary life in Ireland?

It was great to get back to Chesapeake Shores and the O’Brien family in Lilac Lane. This is a fun series with characters that are very likeable who believe strongly in love and family.

Thanks to NetGalley for a copy of this book to read and review.

I have read a dozen of books from Sherryl Woods and I checked my ratings. Apparently I love half of them (4 or 5 stars) and I hate the other half.
I sensed that mixed feelings growing while reading the first part of the story. And then I got angry that all was taking so long and most of all about all this people meddling. WHY ? Can’t people mind their own businesses ? This si so rude and belittling for those they want to meddle the life in.

This is a case of I REALLY wanted to like a book, but just could not connect with it. I actually came very close to marking this book as DNF and moving on, but I hate doing that, so I plugged away.
Please don't take it to mean this is a bad book, it's not, it really is just a matter of me not connecting with the characters or the story. This is just a case of this not being the right book for me.

An enjoyable read. I like the author's voice and writing style. I hate to admit it, but I never read any of the previous books about Chesapeake Shores, so I'm overwhelmed by all the backstory and I can't keep track of how the characters are connected. I do like the protagonists, though. Their chemistry is awesome!

http://www.sherrylwoods.com/index.html
https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0778313867
Keira Malone raised her three kids alone when their father decided drinking was more important. When she finally allowed herself to love again, her fiancé died of a heart attack. Now she leaves Ireland behind for Maryland to spend time with her daughter and new granddaughter, and to help her son-in-law with his Irish pub.
She butts heads with Bryan Laramie, the moody chef at the pub, and more than sparks fly as the two try to decide who knows best. Once they reach a truce, Bryan’s long-lost daughter shows up, and he must deal with unresolved issues from the past, when he last saw his daughter as a baby. And Keira has her own issues: having been so unlucky with love twice, is it even worth the effort? While the two try to sort out their problems, the rest of the town takes sides for the upcoming Fall Festival Irish Stew cook-off, where they will match up to decide who’s really best in the kitchen.
Sherryl Woods is the author of more than 100 novels. Lilac Lane is her newest novel, the 14th book in the Chesapeake Shores series.
(Galley provided by Harlequin/MIRA via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.)

There are a handful of authors that you associate with small town fiction, Sherryl Woods is one of them. This book is a return to Chesapeake Shores. It is book 14 in this series. I've read several of these. This is the perfect time to revisit this town, as the series is now a Hallmark series.
This is a novel of second chances, which you find a lot in the small town novels by authors like Sherryl and Debbie Macomber.

Keira and Bryan are a rather unlikely couple. There romance is one that isn't really a hot and heavy sort of thing, but then again, in books like this, I've always found that romance is usually subdued to the point that it is barely there. The meddling from Keira's family makes for some fun moments.

I enjoyed getting to know Moira and Luke, who I hadn't read about before. (Again, I've just read random books in this series).

I liked that the characters aren't the usual twentysomethings that you usually find in romances, or even thirty somethings. These are mature people that have real life issues. Heck, poor Keira even lost her fiance to a heart attack, which is what prompted the family meddling to get her to come to Chesapeake Shores.

The O'Neill family does their best to push Keira and Bryan together even though they don't really get along all that well. That alone is a recipe for love. I loved the oil and water nature of their relationship. It wasn't that they didn't get along, it was more that they didn't know how to.

Bryan's story is really the one that makes this book so good, and a lot of that doesn't really get to the reader until the book is more than halfway through, but when it does. Oh goodness, have a few tissues ready.

The twist that Sherryl took with Bryan's first marriage was definitely an interesting one, and one that doesn't allow for much sympathy for Melody. I found I could have none for her and though Ash was a stand up guy, the lie he and Melody perpetrated was truly cruel when you really start to think about it. It is probably the only part of the book that didn't sit well with me.

I found the book to be a little bit on the long side, but it was still a very welcome addition to this series. I definitely need to go back and fill in some of the gaps in this series, because this was truly a lovely read.

I hope Ms Woods decides to bring Keira's sons to Chesapeake Shores. I would love to see these bad boys turn good.

3 1/2 STARS!

Family reunions in Chesapeake Shores! A story of finding second chances when you least expect it. I've read books in this series before and loved them, but this one didn't quite make it's mark for me. It was hard to connect with the characters and their romance felt a bit flat. Although it drug on in parts, there did come a time when interest picked back up and I was following along to see if the relationships they were working on would reconnect and make for a happy ending.

Keira Malone never thought she'd find herself here at this point in her life. She raised three kids as a hard working single Mom in Dublin, Ireland and carried the weight of the world on her shoulders. On her own after the kids had all began their own lives, she finally found a way to let go of the bitter betrayal of her ex-husband and learned to love again. As fate would have it, she wasn't meant to be happy yet again when her fiancee died suddenly of a heart attack. Now alone and struggling, she agrees to her daughter's request to come to Chesapeake Shores, Maryland to visit, see her grandchild and help out at her son-in-law's restaurant.

Chef Bryan Laramie finds himself butting heads with Keira almost from the start when she comes in and starts making suggestions on how his kitchen should be run! The last thing he needs is her becoming his neighbor and sharing his cozy courtyard too! Though they spat like cats and dogs, they begin to unearth a friendship and sparks begin to simmer the more time they spend getting to know each other. When his long-lost daughter shows up to reconnect, will Keira be able to help pave the way for him to get to know her? And when it's time for her to make a decision about her future, where will he fit in?

Chesapeake Shores sounds like an absolutely magical little town, at least if you don’t mind a whole town full of nosy and interfering neighbors. Not that the collective O’Brien clan doesn’t mean terribly well, and not that they don’t seem to generally do well in their meddling, but Keira Malone is used to being the boss of her own life, thankyouverymuch.

Which doesn’t mean that her life doesn’t get a much needed makeover when she arrives from Dublin to visit her father, her daughter, and her new grandbaby. The ostensible reason for her visit is to help take care of her new (and only) grandchild, and to “consult” for her son-in-law about the authentic “Irishness” of the traditional Irish pub he’s opened in Chesapeake Shores.

Keira has spent her entire adult life working in and managing Irish pubs in Ireland, so she certainly has the right experience for the job. But it’s a made-up job. Her daughter and her father, both now living in Chesapeake Shores, fear that Keira will turn in on herself after the death of her fiance.

After all, that’s exactly what Keira did after the breakup of her marriage. She turned inward and pretty much stayed inward – and exhausted, raising three children on her own with zero help from her drunken ex-husband. And just when she finally let herself open up – boom, another disaster.

So the family, not just Keira’s daughter Moira and Keira’s father Dillon, but the entire O’Brien clan that they have both married into, plots and schemes to get Keira to Chesapeake Shores. And once she’s there, and they all observe the sparks that fly between Keira and the pub’s resident chef Bryan Laramie, they all keep right on scheming, with an eye towards matchmaking between the chef and the “consultant” who seems to question his every move. Or at least he feels that way.

Bryan is just as alone as Keira, and the whole town seems to be more than willing to conspire to get these two together – from manipulating Keira into renting the cottage next door to Bryan’s house to cooking up a cooking contest to finish off the local Fall Festival – a cooking contest that pits Keira’s authentic Irish Stew recipe against Bryan’s hand-me-down version.

The winner of their contest will take all, not just the prize, but also the other’s heart. If they can both figure out what it really, truly means to “win”.

Escape Rating B+: Lilac Lane is a sweet and savory mix of contemporary romance, women’s fiction and small town magic.

Not magic as in Harry Potter, but just the magic that seems to permeate so many small town romances. Chesapeake Shores is just a lovely little town where good things happen to good people – and where there don’t seem to be any bad people – if maybe a few misguided ones – who do not appear in this story. Chesapeake Shores is just a great place to live.

Keira Malone and Bryan Laramie are an interesting and slightly different protagonists for a romance. Both are a bit older – while it’s not specified precisely, both have adult children and seem to be on either side of 50 – with Keira a few years older than Bryan.

They are both people who have been seriously wounded by life and love, and in ways that are similar underneath some rather startling surface similarities. Keira left her husband because he was an alcoholic, Bryan’s wife left him because he was ambitious, self-absorbed and absent. But Keira kept in touch with her ex – not directly, but enough that he could have visited his children anytime he wished – if he wished. Bryan’s wife, on the other hand, just disappeared with their daughter. She vanished. He’s spent years, and countless thousands of dollars, trying to locate them both. It’s not that he wants the marriage back – and who would, but he wants to regain contact with the daughter he still loves.

Neither of them is good at letting people in. Keira because her two attempts at romance have ended in disaster, and Bryan because he’s never bothered to divorce his missing ex.

Both of them need resolution in their lives – and there’s something about the way that they spark each other that makes them both reach for it.

The romance is of the squeaky-clean variety (the hero and heroine have only a few kisses between them when he proposes) but it works for this story and setting. Both Keira and Bryan are tentative about love, and that hesitation is expressed wee in their non-courtship, two-steps-forward-one-step-back relationship.

Although, speaking of two-steps-forward-one-step-back relationships, Keira’s relationship with her daughter Moira, and Moira’s relationship with her husband in specific and with the universe in general feels just a bit “off”. As a reader, I couldn’t figure out why Moira acted the way she did, and in real life I’d feel more than a bit sorry for her husband and her mentor.

Chesapeake Shores does seem like an absolutely marvelous place. The large O’Brien clan is deeply interwoven into the fabric of the town, which seems to have been created by one of them as a tourist destination – and it has flourished.

O’Briens seem to be everywhere. Keira’s father has remarried into the family, as has her daughter. The other women of the O’Brien family both meddle in Keira’s life with abandon and become the circle of sisterhood that she never had – and dearly appreciates now.

Lilac Lane is the 14th book in the Chesapeake Shores series. I’ve not read the earlier books, but was able to get into the story easily. Enough of the family’s previous connections and romances were explained in a way that meant I didn’t feel left out. It probably helped that Keira herself comes in as an outsider, so things have to be explained a bit to her – and we get the benefit of that.

But I certainly enjoyed Lilac Lane more than enough that I’ll be happy to visit Chesapeake Shores again soon!

Favorite Quotes:

Communication skills varied widely between the average man and woman, he’d discovered. For him and Moira, it was as if they spoke entirely different languages and, quite possibly in her case, from some universe not yet discovered.

If we were all punished for our careless failure to realize how important some things are in our life until too late, we’d all be alone and miserable… It’s why we’re given second chances.

My Review:

It is rare for me to read a book so squeaky clean that I could recommend to my elderly mother’s rather persnickety book club, but Lilac Lane certainly qualifies for the “Church Ladies” set. It is also rare to able to enter a series at book number fourteen and be able to follow the story. While it probably would have been easier to keep track of the myriad characters if I’d had experience with the previous installments, it was not a hardship to keep them straight as brief histories were provided along the way. The plot was interesting with two distinct threads that wove together in an entertaining manner, although the story evolved ever so slowly and the genre appeared to be more women’s fiction or small-town type family drama than contemporary romance. The writing flowed well and was laced with equal measures of angst and wry humor and populated with stubborn yet endearing characters of all ages.

IN typical Sherryl Woods fashion, this is another great tale about family, love, and perseverance. Thankyou Netgalley for the opportunity to read it.

Great new addition to the Chesapeake Shores series. I love returning to this town and catching up with everyone. Definitely a must purchase for our library, patrons love this series!

Thanks to NetGalley and Harlequin for the book in exchange for an honest review.

I love going to visit the O'Brien family in Chesapeake Shores. This time we get to see Moira's mother come and start a life in the aftermath of the death of her fiancé. She's wary of coming to Chesapeake Shores but is wanting to see her daughter and meet her granddaughter.

I enjoyed reading Keira's story, she was strong and did what she needed to do in order to make her life work. She wasn't there for romance but somehow it found her even though she had her heart guarded. What happens when she has to go back to Ireland because really she can't stay forever. Or can she?