My thanks to Tor Nightfire for the review copy.

This one wasn’t for me. There’s just too much story crammed into too few pages.

“Lucky Girl” was a fast paced, holiday themed horror with a nice twist at the end. The characters are all realistic, and unreliable, which leaves you guessing through the whole story.

Honestly? This was cute. That may be an odd description but I just think there’s something charming about holiday horror done this way.

Thank you NetGalley and Tordotcom Publishing for the DRC in exchange for an honest review.

I LOVE holiday horror. It may even be my favorite subgenre. Bring me Krampus. Bring me Secret Santa gone horribly wrong. Bring me idyllic scenes of Christmas lights, presents and stockings, blankets of snow, and Gremlins popping out of the tree. So I was very excited to be offered a copy of LUCKY GIRL to review!

Ro is our protagonist, and we begin the story with a gift exchange between total strangers. The five of them had met in a diner and decided to spend Christmas together. During the party, one of the guests tells a story about Krampus, and it lingers with them all. Throughout the novella, we learn more about Ro's tragic past, and we get to see her progress into a successful horror writer, all over the course of several Christmases together and apart.

The writing made this story almost impossible to put down once I hit the 30% mark. I just wanted to find out more and more, and the pages flew by. I also really liked Ro as a protagonist. I think she handled her "luck" about as well as one could. The only issue I had was that I kept waiting for some depth that never came. I cared about Ro and found the other characters interesting, but only in snippets. Their depth wasn't consistent across the story. And while the pages flew by, it also felt like I was skimming the surface of what could have been a very deep and scary novel. I guess my complaint is that I wanted more! More depth, more story, more time on the page. I'm very excited to see what else M. Rickert comes up with.

well, that was disappointing.. seriously - that's it? it's a quick read for sure but i don't recommend this one unfortunately. onto the next! thank you Tordotcom for an advanced copy of this book!

1⭐
This pains me to say, but this story was not for me at all. This is a very short read, and you can feel it. I did not vibe with this author's writing. It felt like the author was trying to simplify everything, expecting the reader to need it laid out. I wanted more from the over all story also. It moved so quickly, there was no time to get attached in any way. There are hits and misses with every book we pick up.
Thank you to NetGalley and Tor for a copy of this book, in exchange for an honest review.

Christmas is creepy. Krampus is a state of mind. Watch out for bells.

This is a fun novella. Ro, a writer, narrates a story about Christmas, psychopathy, folklore, and the power of storytelling. There's not much I can say about the plot without ruining the story, but the writing is in turns sharp, dreamlike, and scary.

I read this in an evening. I think it's better in the dark. If you like spooky little things, try this!

Ro was a struggling writer, who stumbles upon four strangers during the holidays. One thing leads to another and they develop some sort of friendship. At a diner one night, they each share a horror story, although one of them sounds more real than the others. Years later, the group meets again at the place the story took places and things aren't what they seem to be.

The synopsis caught my attention from the beginning and made me really want to read this book. The setting and the idea of incorporating Irish folklore sounded pretty interesting, it was so enjoyable that I wished the story was longer. I loved the Krampus!

This novel incorporated too many elements and the lack of pages didn't do it any justice since nothing seemed to be tied well at the end and there were a lot of rough cuts and jumps. Sadly, the ending was slightly predictable, however, I do think it was adequate with the plot.

I'd recommend this book to people that want to start in the horror genre.

It was good for what it was. Christmas themed campfire story! As the unlikely stranger to “friends” spend two Christmas’ together decades apart, ghost stories are told as a real scary story is unfolding before them. The story is really short so there isn’t too much character development but I wasn’t expecting too much since it was so short. Even though the main story isn’t the story being told during their Christmas Eve story telling time it felt like I was being told a story as I was sitting listening to someone’s “ghost story”. I didn’t see the ending coming and I enjoyed the chaotic nature of the story telling itself.

This book has been lingering on my mind for days, especially after that ending! 😳😳😳😳

Things I loved:

- The setup (a group of strangers getting together... what could go wrong?!)
- Creepy gothic and dark Christmas vibes
- Intertwining tales of past and present
- Thinking you know where the story is going but noooo

Admittedly I'm not familiar with Krampus nor have I watched the movie, but that didn't keep me from enjoying this novella. Despite being a quick read, it certainly packs quite the punch!

Content Warnings: Murder, death of loved ones, stalking, and mention of an eating disorder.

When I received an email from Tor marketing, letting me know about this ARC on Netgalley, they had me at: “the jagged feelings in Nothing But Blackened Teeth by Cassandra Khaw.” Having read NBBT ahead of its release and loving the short horror story I decided to give LUCKY GIRL a try.

This morning, when I was looking through my e-books/ARCs, and saw LUCKY GIRL I decided to start my day with a short horror novella…and it did not disappoint. Still new to reading horror, and though I’ve watched countless movies since I was a child, I still get nervous and like to read horror during the day. Think of me what you will but I like to dip my toes in while the sun is high in the sky. 😅

From start to finish this book took maybe an hour and a half to read and I enjoyed every minute of it. I desperately wish it was a full-length novel, there are so many things I’d like to learn about the characters we meet, and so much history I would love to explore further. Overall a very fun read to start my day and I look forward to picking up more books, written by M. Rickert, to dive into.

A Christmas read? A Halloween read? A misleading synopsis? What is it?

Ro meets a few individuals at a diner that is about to shutter its doors. They end up sitting together and commiserating.

Next thing you know, Ro has them over at her apartment for a Christmas dinner. They decide to tell scary stories. Years later, will the stories come back to haunt them?

This is a novella, and I loved the idea of it. However, it wasn’t scary. It was only mildly interesting, and I’ll forget about it before the next time snow blows a big white load on the green grass.

Thank you to Tor for a widget of the ARC in exchange for an honest review. Expected Publication Date: 9/13/22.

Review also posted at: https://bonkersforthebooks.wordpress.com

It’s no secret that I don’t like Christmas. People just know not to invite me to any holiday whatever because I’ll always say no. There’s just something about a holly jolly holiday that makes me feel so eww. And then Krampus makes an appearance and changes my mood.

Every time a bell rings, Krampus becomes the beast of nightmares!

This was an interesting tale of when the past comes back to haunt you. It was a book that wouldn't let go of my attention even though some parts were slower than I liked them to be. Let me tell you, the parts that got me excited were disturbing and eerie. Eerie enough to give you goosebumps. What really got me was the end. I actually screamed because I didn't see that end coming. It messed me up and I loved it.

Lucky Girl was a decent story. Parts were slow but those last thirtyish pages made me gasp in the best horror-filled way. M. Rickert knew how to capture their audience and make them second guess everything. She got me good and I'll never forget how this book ended. It was marvelous.

Creepy atmospheric horror novella, "Lucky Girl" was spooky, fun and well. paced. I am always looking for books that are scary without being gory and this holiday themed novella fits the bill. Ro (short for Roanoke) is a student at UWM (my alma mater!) and meets some other lonely students in a diner at Thanksgiving. The four then get together at Christmas to exchange simple gifts and they decide to tell ghost stories. Grayson who is wealthy, tells a Krampus story which he insists really happened at his family estate. The four students change and graduate from school and Ro becomes a horror writer. One Christmas they are invited to Grayson's family home and creepy things happen as well as secrets some pretty brutal are revealed.

The author does a good job with describing the atmosphere including the flakes of snow, the smell of the boughs of fir and the crackling of the fireplace This would be fun to reread during the winter. Even reading it on a 50 degree spring day, I got a chill in thinking about the hidden church and the secrets within. I always enjoy reading about writers and I found Ro to be a good heroine for this story. Lots of elements come in to play include serial killing, stalking, and Krampus and I wish this was a longer piece to fully explore some of those ideas. I would definitely read more work by this author. My thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for a free copy of this ARC in exchange for a review.

Lucky Girl by Mary Rickert is a very chilling story.
I was both entertained and captivated right from the start.
Loved all the creepy moments and goosebumps-inducing plot.
Rickert created engaging characters. Ro played an absolute amazing part to this phenomenal Sci-fi Horror story.
I thought the ending was satisfying. And very well descriptive.
The story is wonderfully atmospheric
I absolutely devoured this book and can't wait to read more of her work in the future.

“I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.”

Tordotcom,
Thank You for your generosity and gifting me a copy of this amazing eARC!
I will post my review to my platforms, blog, B&N and Waterstone closer to pub date.

I had a fun time reading this novella - horror around the holidays is one of my niche interests, and I can always do with more Black Christmas. I admit that I don’t know too much about krampus, but I was intrigued by the idea of telling ghost stories around the holidays and the horrors that are imagined become all too real. M. Rickert crafts a great atmosphere and throws in several red herrings; I thought I knew several times where the story was headed and it turns out I didn’t at all. Would recommend this one to any who enjoy a healthy mixture of horror in their yuletide.

Lucky Girl

[Blurb goes here]

Mary Rickert, masterfully paints a great story. While the adventure is rich because of her amazing writing skills, it lacks a little in some obvious ways. Twist plots that aren't that twisty. Two, albeit small, plot holes. And more important, a fleeting appearance from the creature I was expecting to dominate the book. But maybe this book is less about the monsters hiding in the night, and more about the ones we see around us on a daily basis. Humans are frightening creatures at times.

I enjoyed Lucky Girl to no end, and will be in the look out for more Mary Rickert's stories.

Thank you for the free copy!

I love a good Krampus story. This novella was a little short on Krampus for me, but it was filled with all too human monsters. It felt predictable, or at least none of the events were surprising, but I did like the end, and overall I found the story deceptively creepy. I’ll probably be thinking about it for longer than I want to. I recommend reading it at Christmas as a nice contrast to the Hallmark Christmas Movie season.

This is an interesting story; at times it is raw and real and others it feels like a spoken story. After reading it, I sat on my thoughts for a while and at times I was engaged in the story that unfolded, ultimately, I didn't connect or care about the characters and that removed me a bit from the whole experience. Now, that doesn't make the story bad in my view, but I do prefer to connect to the stories I read.

The bones of the story are there, the characters were interesting, and people I could believe were real and taken from real life. The execution of the story was done well. The story is short and easy to read, it has a fun atmosphere and would be an enjoyable Halloween/Winter read. I did enjoy that I had never read a story quite like this and that at times it did feel raw and real. I think others will enjoy this story and I think it would be a fun campfire read. Thank you to NetGalley and Tor Publishers for this ARC and I am leaving an honest review.

Very eerie book. Thought I knew what was going to happen but was surprised every time. Thanks to Netgalley for the opportunity to read this book