if you ask me, 2024 is the year of the baseball romances, and "you should be so lucky" is one of my top contenders for the category. this is a queer mid-century romance with a happy ever after, which i would say is cat sebastian's specialty, and let me tell you, she never misses. mark bailey is the furthest thing from a sports reporter that he could be, but when he's assigned to write about eddie o'leary, the new shortstop who's struggling to hit the ball, an unexpected connection forms between them. i absolutely loved mark and eddie's dynamic (grumpy/sunshine!!!) and the way their relationship develops. it's not easy to pull off queer historical romances, but sebastian always manages to do so in a way that feels realistic but still satisfying. i would recommend this book for anyone who loves sports romances (whether you know baseball or not, because god knows i do not) and queer historicals with a happy ever after.

Wow, this is a must read for any fan of MM sports romance. This was such a heartfelt and touching story that made me a little teary, full of swoony feelings, and laugh at all the sweet moments with Lula the dog. You Should Be So Lucky by Cat Sebastian takes place in the same universe as We Could Be So Good, and the storyline and character development in YSBSL is very similar to that in WCBSG but is still different enough that it doesn't feel repetitive.

Writer Mark Bailey had been secretly dating his former boyfriend for seven years and has spent the last year silently morning his passing. Because of this, he's determined to lis his life as out as possible in 1960's NYC and does not want to be anyone's secret ever again. His writing in the art's section of the Chronicle has also fallen off following his boyfriends death, so he agrees to write a recurring diary entries and a magazine article about the Robin's most recent trade and least liked player Eddie O'Leary. Eddie is dealing with a batting slump, teammates who won't talk to him, and having to hide a critical aspect of himself when he gets traded to the New York Robin's baseball team. He never imagined to be making a friend in the reporter writing journal entries about him. But as the two spend more time together they realize they have more in common than one would expect and chemistry that they can't ignore.

This is such a beautiful story of two lonely people finding love together. It was really sweet the way Eddie validated Mark's desire to not be a secret again, and how he comforted and protected him from his internalized fears of being left. Eddie is able to bring out a softer side of Mark that he didn't even realize he had. Eddie reminded me of Andy with his sunny disposition on the outside all while battling internal feelings of inadequacy and loneliness. I loved the bar conversation between Mark and Nick because it also stuck out how similar they are: Mark has let himself become closed off due to his fears until he falls for someone who is able to coax himself out of his shell and be soft towards. I feel like Sebastian does such a good job in writing slow burn romances because you can read the tension building but she fully delivers before it reaches a point of "can they get on with it already". She also does such a good job in creating intimacy between the characters that the hotter moments make me blush even though what is on the page is not particularly graphic.

Thank you Harper Voyager, Avon, and NetGalley for an ARC of You Should Be So Lucky. I see myself building an emotional attachment and relationship to this book the same way Mark had with Hill House.

✨ Review ✨ You Should Be So Lucky by Cat Sebastian

Thanks to Avon and #netgalley for the gifted advanced copy/ies of this book!

First: this isn't listed as a series but it's in the same world as We Could Be So Good, and both Nick and Andy play an important role here.

We Could Be So Good was one of my favorite books last year and so I was thrilled to pick this one up. It's hard to beat We Could in my mind but this comes in a very close second!

Mark Bailey, a cultural/arts reporter on leave while grieving, gets assigned to write a series of stories from the perspective of Eddie O'Leary, a New York Robins baseball player in the middle of a HUGE slump (he hasn't hit a ball for all of June). Mark's not only a bit of a (lovable) grump, but he's a grieving grump after the loss of his partner the year before. Eddie's a ball of sunshine, but one who's lonely and frustrated at his game, being ignored by his teammates, and being far away from his mom. The two build a quick rapport and friendship and I was just living for their connection.

This also brings in another aging sports reporter at the end of his career, and he sees Mark and his loss for what it was. The relationship between George and Mark is also really lovely.

The book is tender and soft, but also gruff and sad in places as Eddie and Mark work through challenges in their heads and in their lives.

Like We Could, these characters grapple with the challenges of keeping their relationship and sexuality private while finding places they can be known for who they are. It's a story of found family in queer spaces and in super masculine spaces like a baseball team.

I'm living for these mid-century romances Cat is writing and want more more more!

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫 (4.5 stars)
Genre: M/M historical romance, grumpy-sunshine, sports
Setting: 1960s NYC
Reminds me of: We Could Be So Good
Pub Date: 07 May 2024

Read this if you like:
⭕️ tender, deep queer romances
⭕️ mid-century NYC
⭕️ journalism + sports
⭕️ found family

(4.75/5 rounded up to a 5 star)

Solid book, to me it was even better than Cat Sebastian's other title that is set in the same universe (We Could Be So Good). The grief that is written in done in a way that you will tear up or get that frog in your throat at times throughout the story. The difficulty of the loss of a partner especially in that era, it tugs at your heart strings.

The complexity and ease in which the characters of Mark and Eddie come across helps to allow both their stories of grief and change to be illuminated without one overshadowing the other.

The only reason there is a .25 of a star taken is that I was hoping for Maureen and Lillian to be more involved in the story- If a third story takes place in this universe I hope for either it to revolve around them or another wlw couple with their guidance. ( I can wish.)

Definitely in my top 5 books so far this year.

The thing about Cat Sebastian books is that the actual relationship of the couple is always the least angst worthy thing to happen. Mark is working through grief after the shockingly young death of his partner. He’s phoning it in and his boss asks him to take on a project following a baseball player who talks too much and is tanking his career since a team trade.

I felt that Mark’s grief was palpable and it was so painful to see him moving forward in a world where he’s not even allowed to tell people who he’s grieving for an why it was so important. He wasn’t even invited to the funeral by his partner’s family. He’s not ever going to have a day where he’s fine with it so I liked how patient and loving everyone was with him in their own ways.

There’s such an undercurrent of fear in both of the books set in this universe of Cat’s. It’s 1960s New York City and they’re afraid to be found out all the time and their friendship and then relationship basically has a giant elephant in every room. Mark and Eddie are lovely but can’t ever really relax until they’re away from other people and shut up in their apartments or hotel rooms. They finally had a trusted circle of people by the end of the book so they could find a bit of breathing room. I loved getting to see cameos from Nick and Andy in this one where they look like they’re thriving too.

Thank you to Netgalley for a copy in exchange for an honest review.

Like, I'm honestly trying to be chill about how much I loved this book, this universe, and Cat's books in general, but I'm honestly the COMPLETE opposite of chill.

Cat Sebastian books are masterclass -- absolutely beautiful stories of angst and pining and tension between rich, complex characters set in an immersive world. They're so well crafted and utterly captivating, emotionally resonant and utterly readable. They're meaningful and important.

Set in the WCBSG universe, YOU SHOULD BE SO LUCKY is a queer mid-century romance between grieving reporter Mark Bailey and disgraced shortstop Eddie O'Leary. Reluctantly assigned to cover Eddie's poor-performing season, Mark uncovers truths about Eddie and himself as he navigates his grief and new relationships. The two lonely men grow together and in their unfolding union is a stunning story of love and meaning. (And simply the best of the slow-burn, grumpy/sunshine, and found family tropes.)

An absolutely magnetic and beautiful (dare I say it?) home run of a book.

A massive thank you to Avon and Netgalley for the ARC in exchange for my honest, unbiased review. YOU SHOULD BE SO LUCKY is out May 7, 2024.

Cat Sebastian, the president and CEO of writing the most real and loveable characters of all time, has returned to the universe of We Could Be So Good to tell us the story of Mark Bailey and Eddie O’Leary. Mark sort of works at The Chronicle; he’s had a rough year and a half grieving a partner privately and is tasked with writing a diary of sorts in the paper for baseball player Eddie O’Leary. Eddie has just been traded and is also having a rough go at it both with the new team and in his new city.

This story is so much more than a romance. It is about grieving, and living through and with loss. It is about learning to let yourself be loved, it is about finding your place even if it takes some risks. This is a story about, literally and figuratively, stepping up to bat every day of this life and just doing the best you can, and isn’t that what we are all doing?

I loved these characters so much I am already scheming a reread and the book hasn’t even hit the shelves yet, and that is the power of Cat Sebastian.

Thank you so much to Netgalley and Avon Books for this eARC in exchange for an honest review.

RATING: 4/5 STARS

This was a really lovely queer midcentury novel. I really enjoyed its precursor WE COULD BE SO GOOD, so I was happy that YOU SHOULD BE SO LUCKY also delivered on the cozy, gentle romance vibes. I liked both characters and their grumpy-sunshine dynamic. I hope there are more books to come in this series!

Cat Sebastian is the master of cozy hug romances, I just know she loves all her characters so deeply. Mark and Eddie were phenomenal together, I loved how whenever something came up between them, usually in the form of the outside world pressing in on them, they were very us vs the problem. I did prefer We Could Be So Good, and Andy/Nick, but I think that comes down more to my personal tastes, because these two were perfect as well.

Another home run for Sebastian Cat!
For fans of We Could Be So Good, this spin-off book was just as good as the first!
Synopsis:
Mark is grieving his boyfriend, who passed not that long ago, and he has been going through the motions, leaning on his friends Nick and Andy and the mutual love he and Nick have for baseball. Since Mark works with Andy, Andy comes to him with a baseball-related assignment, and somehow Mark writes diary entries for a famous baseball player: Eddie O’Leary.
Eddie O’Leary was blindsided when he found out he was being traded, which caused him to say some not-so-great things about his new team, who retaliated by icing him out. On top of it all, after his trade, Eddie has been in a batting slump with no end in sight, much to the public’s dismay.
But when Mark writes these diary entries for Eddie, he gets to know who Eddie really is and sees that he is a sweetheart who shares his fondness for odd books and Mark’s love for his spoiled dog. Writing the diary entries, Mark sees more of Eddie, and he believes that with his words and Eddie’s game, he might just be able to get the public to root for Eddie, after all.
Review:
Thank you to NetGalley for this ARC. This book was just as good as the first.
It was sweet and cute to see how the characters slowly swung their way into each other’s lives and hearts. I loved to see how Eddie respected Mark’s grief and let him slowly open up to him, and how Mark came to trust Eddie enough to let him in while he was still processing.
Mark realized he no longer wanted to be kept a secret, which was difficult given Eddie’s career as a famous baseball player. But even with this admission, Eddie tried to make something happen between Mark and himself as best he knew how.
It was also nice to see the support they received from the people around them, from their friends to Eddie’s teammates to Mark’s coworkers.
Overall, this book was cute and sweet, and how could it not be, given that its predecessor is We Could Be So Good? This is accurate because both that book and this book are indeed, so good.

Cat Sebastian just gets it, man. She knows what I want and she delivers it!

This is a companion novel set in the same little world as We Could Be So Good, one of my favorite reads of last year. Just like that book, You Should Be So Lucky is the perfect little slice-of-life domestic romance (and features cameos of characters from WCBSG!). Mark and Eddie are so sweet together, and I actually loved all the opining about slumps and bad luck. I really adored Eddie and how falling for Mark helped him realize who he was and wanted to be. Watching Mark move from grieving his previous lover to opening up to Eddie's affection, and allowing himself to stop keeping so many secrets, was lovely.

The author does a great job at acknowledging the period-typical societal danger for queer, poor, Jewish, and non-white people without allowing that fact to bring down the positive vibes of the work as a whole; little one-off lines, like Mark acknowledging that his inherited wealth enables him to feel secure in being more obvious about his queerness because he doesn't fear losing his job prospects, or Price (a Black side character) not tagging along on hijinks because "getting arrested isn't as fun for him as the rest of the (white) guys on the team," help to avoid glossing over these realistic issues without dragging down the story. I kinda wish we'd seen more of Connie Newbold, the owner of Eddie's baseball team, because it seemed like she was being set up to have more of a role but it just didn't really go anywhere?

I hope Cat Sebastian keeps writing these quiet mid-century romances, because I will keep eating them up!

TW: death of a loved one, grief/mourning, homophobia, references to racism and antisemitism and misogyny, alcoholism, heart attack and hospitalization, past parent death mentioned, past family disownment mentioned

Cat Sebastian is the queen of romance about fundamentally good people who are trying the best they can, and she comes through yet again with a historical romance about a closeted baseball player in the middle of a slump and a reporter who's grieving the death of the partner he couldn't tell anybody about. Eddie and Mark are having a hard time but from the moment they meet, it's clear why they're going to be good for each other, and that's what makes a romance worth reading to me! Full of Easter eggs about baseball (not my speed) and ambiguously queer literature (I see you, reference to Strangers on a Train!), this is a really beautiful story about finding love and community in imperfect circumstances.

Thanks to NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for a review.

Perfect for fans of sports romance with an adorable grumpy/sunshine romance slow burn. Mark and Eddie are total opposites and their interactions were so fun to read and follow their story.

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.

This is a lovely period piece set in New York in 1960. A journalist in grief over the loss of his longterm partner is assigned to write about a professional baseball player who is in a slump. The relationship helps lift them out of their depths, and challenges them to figure out how to build new lives.

A swoony slow burn romance that had me in chokehold from start to finish!

Set in 1960 New York, You Should Be So Lucky is a historical fiction gay romance 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.

I LOVED this read. The characters are nuanced and I loved being in their heads. Mark is quietly grieving a lost love while unexpectedly falling in love which is so incredible to read about. And Eddie is failing at a game he was born to play while stepping into his queerness and finding love in the most unexpected places. Their quiet romance is nothing short of amazing. I was rooting from them the entire way.

Besides the romance, I loved the setting, the explanation of baseball and events at the time were well done but not overly complicated, and the side characters really added another layer to the story and showcased how community can show up for those we care about.

Read For: grumpy/sunshine, found family, sports romance, falling in love over the phone, and queer romance

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for my electronic advanced reader copy in exchange for my honest review.

I only vaguely remembered Mark and William from <i>We Could Be So Good</i>, despite having read that book multiple times, so I was curious how this one would take their story and expand on it. The answer, surprising no one, is "very well." Taking place a year after William's death, the book finds Mark at loose ends, struggling to cope with a grief he can't really show in public, because America in 1960 wasn't all that keen on gay people being treated as people. He's just going through the motions until Andy (from the previous book) asks him to cover NYC's newest baseball team, the disastrous Robins - and mostly Eddie, their purported star player who had a messy burst of anger on national television and is most definitely off his game.

Eddie is a golden retriever of a human being, which, as it turns out, is precisely what Mark needed, although he does his level best to deny it. As the two of them grow closer, we can see both fighting in different ways: Eddie to convince Mark that they can be together despite his status as a famous figure, and Mark to allow himself to believe that he can be happy and in love again. There are themes of coping with grief, struggling against rampant homophobia (that may not be quite as rampant as they think), and a slow, sweet growth of emotion between them. I suppose the technical term for this style of romance is "grumpy/sunshine," but that's really too reductive to fully explain Mark and Eddie's relationship. They're people, not tropes, and that's probably the novel's greatest strength of all.

Thank you to NetGalley, the author, and the publisher for this ARC.

I absolutely loved this book.

Mark is a reporter who has lost his motivation after losing his partner of many years. Eddie is professional baseball player who was traded to a new team and ranted about being traded on national television, which is where he found out. Once he starts at the new team, he isn't playing at his best which just exacerbates his problems.

Mark isn't a sports writer but he gets tasked with writing a weekly journal or diary article about Eddie and that's how they meet. I loved how their romance plays out and each character's growth throughout the story. Also, I can't forget to mention Lula. Who doesn't love a cute dog in a romance?

This book was low angst and sweet with some funny moments. Also, it isn't plot heavy but I didn't feel that it was too long or boring. Instead it spent the time on character growth and just showing the character's living their lives. Would definitely recommend reading. You don't have to read the first book in the series before this one but that one was amazing as well.

I’ve loved every Cat Sebastian book I’ve ever read and You Should Be So Lucky is no exception.

This book is about queer grief and queer love and how they often exist simultaneously. What I really loved about this book was how tender and soft it was. It was written beautifully, and Eddie & Mark complemented each other so well.

There is very little plot in this book - which in itself is not a bad thing! Cat herself has marketed the book as having 2% plot. However, I do think the book was slightly too long for the plot to be so thin.

Overall I adored this one & absolutely recommend!
Thank you to Avon Publishing & NetGalley for an e-ARC of this book!

These books are just so, so good. The author managed to fit together grief, gorgeous writing, LGBTQ+ poignancy, and truly beautiful romance into a cohesive and lovely narrative. The whole thing was just so tender. It featured queer trauma, but as part of what had shaped the characters, not as on-page events. The protagonists were delightful and I wanted purely the best for them. I sincerely loved this book.

Regarding smut, this never went above a PG-13 reading.

In 1960 New York, reporter Mark Bailey is assigned to cover the upcoming baseball season, specifically focusing on obnoxious shortstop Eddie O'Leary's antics. Mark is grieving the loss of his long-time partner William, although given the necessary secrecy of their relationship, his grief must be private and contained, isolating him from those around him. For his part, Eddie has been thrown off by a trade to a new team in a new city, and seems to lose all his baseball skills the moment he is transferred. Dealing with an unfriendly new team, Eddie is struggling with his career and his sudden loneliness. Thrown together by circumstance, these two men slowly begin to realize their mutual attraction but must decide how much they're willing to fight for their relationship.

I'm not normally a sports romance person but I will unquestioningly read anything Cat Sebastian writes. And she does such a good job with this story that even if you are also not a sports romance person, I would encourage you to read this anyway. There is really not a huge focus on the baseball aspect here--the story is tender and sweet, with a focus on loneliness, grief, and loss. There are some truly heart-wrenching moments, but the book also highlights the joy of new relationships, the fizzy feeling of falling for someone, what it means to connect with others, and learning to let yourself be loved. This book is emotional in all the right ways and will leave you feeling hopeful about the world and optimistic about the innate goodness of people, despite everything.

Highly, highly recommend.