You Should Be So Lucky: A Novel

Cat Sebastian

May 2024 · Sold by HarperCollins

About this ebook

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.

Ratings and reviews

3.5stars—YOU SHOULD BE SO LUCKY is an historical, adult, LGBTQ+ baseball romance set in 1960 focusing on twenty two year old, professional baseball player Eddie O’Leary, and journalist Mark Bailey. YOU SHOULD BE SO LUCKY is set in the same world as the author’s WE COULD BE SO GOOD.YOU SHOULD BE SO LUCKY is an extremely slow building story of secrets and lies, acceptance and love. The premise is thought-provoking; the slow burn romance is awkward at times; the characters are charismatic

I enjoyed Mark and Eddie as they slowly made their way to each other and through their own issues. Basically pushed together, they need to find their way and accept the feelings between them. At moments, I felt that we were bogged down in too much minutiae, details. This was definitely a slow-burn, but their journey was an interesting one in the long run. I received a copy through Netgalley, courtesy of Avon Books, and this is my unsolicited review.

About the author

Cat Sebastian writes queer historical romances. Cat’s books include We Could Be So Good and the Turner series, and have received starred reviews from Kirkus, Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, and Booklist. Before writing, Cat was a lawyer and a teacher and did a variety of other jobs she liked much less than she enjoys writing happy endings for queer people. She was born in New Jersey and lived in New York and Arizona before settling down in a swampy part of the South. When she isn’t writing, she’s probably reading, having one-sided conversations with her dog, or doing the crossword puzzle.