You Should Be So Lucky by Cat Sebastian-review

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ABOUT THE BOOK: Release Date May 7, 2024

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.

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REVIEW: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.

Told from dual omniscient third person perspectives (Eddie and Mark),covering approximately nine months, YOU SHOULD BE SO LUCKY follows journalist Mark Bailey as he is tasked with writing a diary (of a sorts) focusing on professional baseball player Eddie O’Leary, a young man whose career is quickly spiralling out of control. Traded without warning to the New York Robins, Eddie is in a slump, struggling at the plate, and in the proverbial closet when it comes to his sex life and his career. The world has yet to accept the idea of homosexuality, or ‘queers’ in professional sports but Eddie will quickly discover the journalist assigned to write a piece about his career, is a man with more in common than Eddie could have ever imagined. Enter journalist Mark Bailey, a gay man who is battling between head and heart in the wake of losing someone he loved,and his attraction to a man whose career could end if his secret were discovered.

The relationship between Eddie and Mark begins as a professional arrangement in which Mark has been assigned to follow Eddie, and write a weekly journal focusing on the man with whom he will fall in love but Mark’s last relationship had been hidden from view, and Mark refuses to cross the line in the face of discrimination, homophobia, heart break and professional suicide. The $ex scenes fade to black and are mostly implied.

The secondary and supporting characters include a few cameos from reports Nick Russo, and his lover Andy Fleming (We Could Be So Good 1), as well as sports reporter George Allen, and several teammates and management from the New York Robins.

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 yet desperate.

Copy supplied for review

Reviewed by Sandy