You Should Be So Lucky: A Novel

4.7 | 998 ratings

Price: 22.04

Last update: 11-24-2024

About this item

An emotional, slow-burn, grumpy/sunshine, queer mid-century romance for fans of Evvie Drake Starts Over, about grief and found family, between the new star shortstop stuck in a batting slump and the reporter assigned to (reluctantly) cover his first season—set in the same universe as We Could Be So Good.

The 1960 baseball season is shaping up to be the worst year of Eddie O’Leary’s life. He can’t manage to hit the ball, his new teammates hate him, he’s living out of a suitcase, and he’s homesick. When the team’s owner orders him to give a bunch of interviews to some snobby reporter, he’s ready to call it quits. He can barely manage to behave himself for the length of a game, let alone an entire season. But he’s already on thin ice, so he has no choice but to agree.

Mark Bailey is not a sports reporter. He writes for the arts page, and these days he’s barely even managing to do that much. He’s had a rough year and just wants to be left alone in his too-empty apartment, mourning a partner he’d never been able to be public about. The last thing he needs is to spend a season writing about New York’s obnoxious new shortstop in a stunt to get the struggling newspaper more readers.

Isolated together within the crush of an anonymous city, these two lonely souls orbit each other as they slowly give in to the inevitable gravity of their attraction. But Mark has vowed that he’ll never be someone’s secret ever again, and Eddie can’t be out as a professional athlete. It’s just them against the world, and they’ll both have to decide if that’s enough.

Amanda Gates

Beautiful and moving love story!

Reviewed in the United States on May 24, 2024

Cat Sebastian is the queen of my heart! I’m a puddle of goo for her midcentury boys, and Mark and Eddie are no exception.

We met Mark Bailey in We Could Be So Good, he works at the paper and persisted in gifting Nick with queer literature. When we begin his story, he’s deep in mourning for his late boyfriend - withdrawn from life, he has mostly quit his job but still lurks around the office. One day Andy gets the idea to send him to do a weekly feature on Eddie O’Leary, a baseball player deep in both a PR scandal and a batting slump. Both men are in crisis, and they find unexpected kinship in one another.

I adore the unique grumpy x sunshine dynamic these two have! Mark is prickly and biting, but essentially kind. And while Eddie is sunny and easygoing for the most part, he has a hell of a temper. Watching them learn to support and trust one another was completely lovely. The writing is as immersive as always, expertly building this world of dreamers and lovers in a time when to be true to themselves was a jail sentence.

As with her other books, these are what I’d call cracked door spice, but the emotional impact is weighty and the tension delicious. Every moment and character carries significance to the story, and I can’t get enough of these journeys. I recommend this for anyone, but fans of sports romance, historical, and/or Cat Sebastian won’t be disappointed!

(This one also frequently references one of my favorite authors of all time, Shirley Jackson, so that was a delight!)

amf0001

Can I give it more stars?

Reviewed in the United States on November 11, 2024

Just so so good. Moving and funny and wonderful - and I don't even like baseball!!

It really was a perfect book, with moving motifs on love and loss and what you lose from hiding, the anger that motivates you, found family, real family. It was just wonderful. Second in a series (first one was also excellent) but I think it would work as a stand alone - but why would you do that, when you can read 2 books set in this wonderful world. I can only hope she writes a third one!

Blue in Washington (Barry Ballow)

The Labrador Puppy Meets Persian Cat Simile Is Apt

Reviewed in the United States on May 15, 2024

It's 1960 in NYC. The Dodgers have bailed in favor of the West Coast. An expansion team arrives to fill the void, bringing with it a collection of worn out vets, odd-balls and a 22-year old phenom who doesn't want to leave his Midwest home. A slightly jaded and grieving journalist is assigned to cover the reluctant team star as the latter struggles with a batting slump and living down public statements he's made about his new home. The pair gradually settles into a relationship that starts asprofessional and gradually becomes friendly and much more.
The novel is nicely character-driven, but there is a lot for the reader to learn about professional baseball as well the social environment of the times. As the relationship that is the focus of the story turns romantic, the forced public invisibility of same sex couples hangs heavy of the two men. An intelligent, if somewhat verbose discussion of the dilemma Is a big part of the novel's second half.
There is a non-specific, but happy ending to this story that is well-earned and suggests a possible sequel that deals with the inevitable outing of the pair--still some years away from Stonewall.

Lisa Perez

Love against the odds - highly recommended

Reviewed in the United States on August 7, 2024

This is a thoroughly enjoyable story of two men who find each other during the oppressive era of the early 1960s. Eddie O'Leary is a young baseball player who has just been traded to the NYC Robins. He's in a horrible slump, receiving the silent treatment by his new team due to impulsive comments he made to the press, and he misses his previous team and his mother.

Mark Bailey is a writer for the Chronicle newspaper. He still grieving the death of his partner one and a half years ago. The relationship was always under wraps and he had to bear most of the pain in secret. When he first gets assigned to write a series of stories about Eddie, he feels the first flicker of interest through a blanket of depression.

Their relationship is a bit of a slow burn, as they navigate their individual struggles against a backdrop of a world that does not accept two men as a couple. Having to lead a double life where few people know their true selves is exhausting and stressful. Still, despite the odds against them, they make the most beautiful life together, full of passion, with the promise of a forever love. The research is impeccable. Highly recommended!

Kevin Co

An MM period romance that is full of queer joy

Reviewed in the United States on May 30, 2024

You Should Be So Lucky is a historical 1960s gay romance between a newspaper columnist and a baseball player. Mark Bailey is still reeling from the loss of his lover when he is assigned to write a series of articles about the new hotheaded rookie pitcher. Eddie O’Leary is in a slump after being transferred from his old team to New York where he is being shunned by his new team who he very publicly maligned them. These two lonely men find companionship with each other and struggle to keep things professional.

This book was just so cute, so adorable, and so charming I couldn’t help but smile throughout. It’s low angst, low conflict, and just a cozy slow-burn romance with no third act break up. I could not ask for more. Is it perhaps too idealistic and optimistic? Yes, but I welcome this pure queer joy.

I know next to nothing about baseball, but it did not matter because these two men just had me completely on their side from the get go. Mark learns to love again and accept the love that is given to him despite the many seemingly valid reasons against it because sometimes love isn’t logical. Eddie learns that life and love isn’t always perfect, but that doesn’t mean he can’t still live and love in an imperfect world. They exemplify the grumpy+sunshine, rottweiller+golden retriever tropes to perfection.

You Should Be So Lucky delivers another period romance full of queer joy.

Darian

Cute, Fun and Fresh!

Reviewed in the United States on September 30, 2024

I tore through this book! It is written so well and the author clearly did their research on baseball. As a baseball & book lover this read had be on cloud 9!!

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