4.5 stars


Cat Sebastian manages to do something magical with this book. It's incredibly unique, managing to expand the reader's expectations of what a book in the romance genre is capable of, or what a book in this genre even can be. You Should Be So Lucky is a novel equally concerned with grief as it is with romance, and it approaches grief with more tenderness than any novel I've ever read before. Sebastian builds this romance and the main characters' relationships through a firm belief that grief isn't an absence of love, but rather a compounding of it -- grief is love saying, "Yes, And."

I so, so, so treasured my time with this book. Usually I tear through Sebastian's novels, gobbling them up at breakneck speed. But this book told me to sit and savor and FEEL. I have no idea how many times I cried, but damn did I Feel while reading this.

I loved how this book transports you into feeling physically present through the entire story, from the Polo Grounds to Greenwich Village, all within a historical lens. My one qualm is that I felt like the build-up of the relationship didn't quite hit the same way it usually does in Sebastian's novels, but I'm honestly not mad about it because the extraordinary other elements of this book really, really make up for me being picky.

I will likely be revisiting this book sometime within the next 8 months, and I fully intend to buy a copy for myself and another to lend out to other people -- this is a book I want to share with my world.

Cat Sebastian knows how to break your heart and then put it back together again in the most beautiful way, much like she does with Mark's heart in this story. Coming out of the fog of the most unimaginable grief, Mark doesn't imagine he will ever be truly happy again. But, he needs to keep busy, so why not take on an assignment to report on professional baseball, of all things. Surely, baseball player Eddie O'Leary won't be exactly what he needs to bring happiness back to his life. Set in vibrant 1960 New York City, Cat Sebastian gives voice to a love story that used to have to be kept secret, but deserves to be told.

This M/M historical (1960's) romance set in New York City features a professional baseball player in the midst of a huge batting slump and the arts reporter asked to provide local color on him even though he is barely writing while grieving his late partner. Neither Eddie nor Mark expect sparks to fly between them, but surprisingly that's exactly what begins to happen. I love this book so much, even more than the author's previous one which is set in the same universe. Highly recommended.

Cat Sebastian's last book, We Could Be So Good, was my favorite book of last year, so I was very excited to spend more time in that universe. While You Should Be So Lucky wasn't quite on that level, it was still very, very good. Sebastian's characters always have such a fondness for each other, and that's always the highlight of her books for me.

You Should Be So Lucky was as much a romance as it was an exploration of grief, particularly grieving silently because you quite literally cannot tell anyone the reason you're grieving. Mark's journey of slowly letting people into his life and his evolution from cynical to hopeful was really believable and well done.

Thanks to Avon and NetGalley for this eARC!

<i>We Could Be So Good</i> was a standout for me last year, and this followup about a grieving journalist and a baseball player (who kind of has the yips) was a similarly sweet and cozy mid-century romance. It seems simple, but Cat Sebastian just excels at writing two characters who click. She doesn't shy away from the challenges of being gay in the 1960s, but I'm glad that the lives of her characters, though they aren't perfect, never take a turn towards grim. I'll read as many of these as Cat Sebastian wants to write, and yes, I would love to walk Lula through Gramercy Park.

You Should Be So Lucky by Cat Sebastian is everything I have come to love about Sebastian’s work. I adored how this book, which is a romance involving a baseball player in a severe batting slump and a minimally employed writer, is also a complex exploration of grief, second chances, and meeting people where they are in life. Mark’s grief is palpable throughout this story. It jumps off the page and is compounded by not being able to share his past relationship with others. Eddie sees his grief and accepts Mark where he is and simultaneously Eddie is, perhaps unknowingly, grieving his rookie season and comfort zone after being traded to a new team. I loved the side characters we met: Eddie’s teammates, his team manager, George Allen, Mark’s dog Lula. I will be rereading this book perhaps immediately and recommend it to anyone who has ever had something they love just not go the way they anticipated, anyone who loves a prickly but ultimately caring main character, and lastly anyone who is going to cheer for the underdog.

It's a delight to see more of the crabby book critic Mark Bailey from We Could Be So Good. Here, he's recovering from the loss of his partner and takes on a new assignment on baseball player Eddie O'Leary. Eddie a big heart and a big mouth, he has just been traded to the New York Robins, he's managed to alienate the team and the city, and is in a hitting slump.

You really believe that these two characters like each other from very early on, but they have very good reason to be cautious about starting a relationship, which makes for wonderful pining. The backdrop of the Robins' attempt to establish themselves as a team and the secondary characters are delightful.

A classic Cat Sebastian and the perfect followup to WCBSG! Lovely, soft, and intimate, exploring themes of grief and belonging, and a sports romance to boot. A great read for the start of 2024.

Thank you to Avon and Harper Voyager via Netgalley for providing me with an eARC in exchange for an honest review. All opinions expressed are my own.

The writing is heavily expositional and not for me. I stopped after chapter 1 (4%) but would imagine this being a solid three stars for the target audience, four for the right readers.

Thank you to NetGalley and Avon for the ARC.

You Should Be So Lucky is a charming tale of romance and baseball, and also of grief and moving forward. Sebastian really captivated me with this story! I couldn't help but root for Mark and Eddie, and I felt the weight of what each character was facing also. I am really enjoying this series and I definitely recommend to anyone searching for those queer historical fiction reads!!

This was a cute romance with plenty of humor but also plenty of real emotional moments. I love Cat Sebastian books and I love queer sports romances books, so my expectations were high, and I was not disappointed.

This was a sweet and fun sports romance with two protagonists I really rooted for and wanted to know more about. I thought Mark's process as a widower was a great perspective, and the balance of secrecy vs authenticity felt optimistic but not overly so for the time period. I do think it drags on a little bit, like the first one in the series, but it's still a nice read.

I loved this book. Cat Sebastian was one of the standout discoveries for me in 2023, and this follow up to We Could Be So Good is as amazing as her other works. I loved the evolving grumpy/sunshine relationship between Mark and Eddie. I'm glad Sebastian decided to build out the characters and setting from the previous book by exploring Mark Bailey's personal life and the evolution of the Chronicle. There's a common thread of isolation continued from We Could Be So Good, showing that even someone like Mark Bailey, who seemed to have constructed a community for himself despite the hostility he faced as a gay man in the late 1950s, can be just as lonely as any of the other characters. I love seeing how Sebastian explores queer identity and relationships in different historical periods and in different settings, and moving this story slightly forward and outside of the relative safety of the Chronicle offices was a great way to ground the new events in familiarity without retreading the same ground.

I 100%, wholeheartedly recommend this book to anyone who love queer or historical romances.

This book is an absolute delight. Soft, gentle, funny, and sexy - and all the historical NYC and baseball details are fantastic. Cat Sebastian never misses, and her midcentury books are my particular favorite.

A queer historical romance about grief and second chances had me clutching the book to my chest and kicking my feet giddily from pretty much start to finish, and that about sums up the deft skill and emotional power of Cat Sebastian’s writing.

In You Should Be So Lucky, Mark and Eddie confront some pretty heavy universal struggles: we will all fail, no matter how hard we try, and death spares no one — and there’s often not a logical or fair explanation to either of those universal struggles. Here, those struggles are handled with so much care and humor at the heart of the story that it feels like a warm ember is cradled in your hands the whole time, so you aren’t bothered by the harsh reality of the world’s dreariness. While both Mark and Eddie struggle, there’s plenty of light, warmth, laughter, and love throughout their story. Most abundantly, there’s an ever present hope of a second chance, for nearly every character on the page, and each of those individual second chances are beautiful and heartwrenching in all their highs and lows. I’ve yet to find a Cat Sebastian book I didn’t love, but this one in particular is something special: it lays a foundation of hope gradually and unceasingly, until it’s something that can’t possibly be broken. I loved every minute.