Reviewed by Sadonna

TITLE:   You Should Be So Lucky

AUTHOR:  Cat Sebastian

NARRATOR:  Joel Leslie

PUBLISHER:  Harper Audio

LENGTH:  11 hours and 59 minutes

RELEASE DATE:  May 7, 2024

BLURB:  

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.

REVIEW:

Mark Bailey is a writer and a prominent New York newspaper. He’s not a sportswriter, mind you, but an Arts page writer.  His boss, in an effort to gain more weekend readership decides that Mark should profile the newest shortstop on the New York Robins baseball team to bolster their readership.  Eddie O’Leary has been traded to this new team and well, let’s say he didn’t handle it well.  He’s gotten off to a pretty bad start with his teammates and the last thing he is interested in is having some reporting trailing him as he tries to get his life back on track.

Mark is still reeling from the death of his partner.  He’s struggling to get up each day, but he does have a job and his late partner’s dog who expect him to show up so he does.  But he’s a bit of a shell of a man.  Being closeted by necessity, he can’t openly express his grief.  This assignment, while not what he had hope for or signed up for in the end provides another reason for him to carry on.

As Mark and Eddie spend time together, they both end up opening up to each other.  Mark’s writing shows Eddie in a different light and helps ease his way a bit after the rough start.  It turns out they have more in common than originally meets the eye and they both could really use a friend in what feels like a somewhat hostile place.  Of course it’s still the middle of the twentieth century so they are careful as to how they work things out, but in the end they come to the realization that they only have this one life and they are going to need to figure out how they are going to live it.

This is a beautifully written story highlighting what it was like to be queer when it wasn’t possible to live openly.  I thought I couldn’t love a story more than We Could Be So Good, the previous story in this universe, but I think this one may have notched it just a tad.  Maybe because Mark was coming from a place of grief that couldn’t be shared outside his very few close friends the stakes seemed different.  Plus the plight of a closeted athlete 60 years sadly isn’t a whole lot different today when it comes to the major sports leagues.  Eddie and Mark are navigating not only their pasts and personal issues, but also the mores of the day that leave them without the kind of support that they really could have used.  That being said, the found family in this story, as in the previous story, are wonderfully written.  Mid-twentieth century New York City is also a vibrant character in this book.  Again, this author is able to paint such a gorgeous picture with words.

What to say about Joel Leslie?  The scope and breadth of characters and accents here were astounding.  He does his usual stellar job of making each character unique and distinct.  The emotions in this tale are powerfully performed here which added another beautiful layer to really heartbreaking/heartwarming story.  Bravo on a job well done.  I highly recommend listening to this story even if you’ve already read it. The performance elevates even this wonderful story from a dream author.  Marriage made in heaven and I look forward to the next collaboration.

RATING:

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