I ATE THIS UP. This is my first of Cat’s books, and only the second historically-set queer romance I have read. I absolutely loved it!

The characters were realistic, relatable, and oh so good together. Mark and Eddie had such a great story, and it encompassed so much more than just a linear romance.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and will definitely be checking out more of Cat’s work in the future!

Cat Sebastian could write in this universe forever and I would never get sick of it! Set in 1960 New York City, this story follows Mark Bailey (who you might recognize if you read We Could Be So Good), a journalist struggling with grief after his partner died about a year and a half before the book starts, and Eddie O'Leary, a baseball player who has managed to piss off his new team and basically every single fan before even arriving in the city. To improve Eddie's image, he agrees to work with Mark, who will write a weekly "diary" in the newspaper as Eddie, and the two become friends. As their connection develops and attraction sparks, they must consider what their feelings mean for Eddie's career, and Mark is reckoning with his grief and loneliness and he lets Eddie into his life.

Beautifully tender, You Should Be So Lucky is a book about falling in love, grief, and being who you are despite the world not wanting to let you. This is a book about wanting things you haven't allowed yourself to have, trading books as a form of flirting, slumps, homophobia in sports and a dog that waits by the door.

After reading We Could Be So Good - my first foray into Cat Sebastian’s work - last September, I was so excited to see that her next novel was going to be in the same vein of historical romance set in more recent history. Even more excited that baseball was involved (I’ve always found baseball to be a romantic sport to watch and read about. Fever Pitch anyone?).

I am so happy to report that this did not disappoint. Much like We Could Be So Good, You Should Be So Lucky is a warm, heartfelt, cozy romance set in a time period where queer relationships would’ve been kept largely under wraps.

Set throughout 1960, You Should Be So Lucky follows Eddie O’Leary, a young baseball player going through a slump following his trade to a new team and Mark Bailey, a writer - not a sports writer! - who is a year and a some months out from having lost his longtime partner. There is a near immediate fondness that these characters have for each other despite their differences in not only profession but just about every aspect of their lives.

There is not a lot of plot (if any) here so if you are looking for dramatics this is not for you! There are historical accuracies but there are also a lot of anachronisms as far as the way it is written, behaviors of certain characters and maybe even the lack of aforementioned dramatics. If you’re coming here for romance and expecting a history lesson alongside - turn away! Or don’t, the romance is worth staying for.

You Should Be So Lucky was a page turner despite its lack of plot and intensity if only because Eddie and Mark are impossible not to root for. You want to see Eddie’s career through whether he’s able to turn his slump around or not. You want to see Mark fall in love with writing again after experiencing such loss.

You want to read about these characters finding love in each other despite the odds!

Read We Could Be So Good and follow it up with You Should be So Lucky. They can be read alone but are quite the treat together. Like a piece of to-go cake (wink wink).



Thank you to NetGalley and Avon for the eARC!

You Should Be So Lucky by Cat Sebastian
Pub Date: May 7, 2024
Rating: 5/5 stars

THIS BOOK IS SO GOOD.

First and foremost, while this book is definitely a stand-alone, if you haven't read "We Could Be So Good," which establishes the universe this book takes place in, READ THAT BOOK, TOO. I loved We Could Be So Good, so when I found out Cat Sebastian had written another book in the same world, I was so excited. You Should Be So Lucky lived up to every expectation I had. I don't know what other characters could possibly have their own book in this world, but I desperately want more of these characters.

As with the other book, this one had me all torn up over the world these characters, Eddie and Mark, inhabit. I wanted so much more for them, and for the real people living in the 1950s and 1960s in the lgbtq community. I loved the places these characters found support and acceptance and love from members of their community. But Cat Sebastian's books, rightly, don't shy away from the realities people faced in the times in which these books are set. This makes the story so compelling and heart-wrenching, even when the end of the story is relatively happy given the high stakes these characters face in their personal and professional lives.

Now for Mark and Eddie, specifically. Ahhhh. I loved them. Maybe even more than Andy and Nick in the first book. I found their to be clear parallels between this couple and Andy and Nick, but the characters and stories are still so unique. Eddie's optimism and openness are infectious. I found myself, like Mark, wanting to protect him at times. The development of their relationship felt natural and it made the story all the more compelling. Every time Mark hesitated, worried, or tried to slow things down out of concern for Eddie's wellbeing, I loved him even more while also wanting to yell at him to stop so they could be together. These guys are wonderful. I SO enjoyed reading their story.

I also loved getting glimpses of Nick and Andy again, as well as meeting new characters. I felt that George, in particular, added such depth and sweetness to this story; this was especially true as Mark navigated his grief. This entire plotline was raw and emotional and beautiful and added so much to the book.

Read this book. And anything else by Cat Sebastian you can get your hands on. I'm definitely going to read her other books.

ARC provided by publisher via NetGalley in exchange for honest review.

A review in three parts. Read whichever ones apply to you!

For general audiences not wanting spoilers:

You Should Be So Lucky is the story of Eddie O'Leary, a baseball player who has lost his swing, and Mark Bailey, a reporter grieving the loss of his partner of many years. I really did not expect to love a book about baseball, and I especially didn't expect to have any patience for a book that tried to turn baseball into a Metaphor for Life. This book proved me wrong. It's a gentle, contemplative story that is doing so much more than just developing a love story between two protagonists (though it does that very well).

For WCBSG fans who want expectations set without being too spoiled:

YSBSL is very much of a piece with WCBSG in the sense that it has a similar prose tone (third-person present, appreciation for the lyricism of the domestic, and focus on protagonists refusing to acknowledge a single feeling until they can't resist). In both books, the threat of outing is an acknowledged reality of 1950s queer life, yet it is not wielded *against* the characters as an imminent threat to safety. There are a few notable differences as well. Where physical intimacy in WCBSG happened on-page but in rather vague terms (more "fade to black"), YSBSL often used the device of initiating intimacy and then cutting immediately to its aftermath (more "closed door"). While both books focus on character development, vibes, and the long romance arc, I would say that YSBSL has a slightly broader narrative universe than its predecessor. Its overarching themes (baseball, grief, slumps, second chances) and its cast of secondary characters both get more air time than they did in WCBSG. Some readers may lament even a minor shift away from a tight focus on the romance, I thought the balance was perfection. My very subjective takeaway is that in WCBSG I felt most moved by the minute detailing of Nick and Andy's romance; in YSBSL I felt most moved by what Eddie and Mark's romance had to tell me about living joyfully in the face of change. I value both deeply.

For the spoiler-indifferent, or those having finished and looking to Talk Themes:

If you've made it this far, you've pretty much got my "review" of the book. But I still have a bunch of un-marshalled and un-collected thoughts about this book that feel a bit more spoilery. I went into YSBSL braced to possibly dislike two different elements of it. The first one is, quite simply, baseball. I kind of despise the sport. Not for anything inherent to baseball itself, but for the way it was wielded by the men in my family as both something I had no choice but to interact with (I was constantly getting dragged to stadia) and something I could never fully appreciate because I was a girl. Anyway, I have little time or patience for baseball. And when it became apparent that Cat Sebastian might be trying to draw broad thematic parallels between losing your baseball swing and losing a romantic partner... let's just say, it's a testament to how much I trust her as a writer that I did not fling my ARC into a river.

But... goddamn if she didn't actually make it work? I loved the thematic resonances in this book so, so, SO much. I'm not sure Sebastian gets enough credit for how boldly she takes on the irrevocability of loss as part of an HEA (she has a romance hero in a different book dying of tuberculosis, ffs). But she does it beautifully. I loved how the theme of continuing to live after loss wove its way through everything in the book, from something as small as the loss of a neighborhood, to something as uninteresting (to me) as the loss of a baseball game, to as earth-shattering as the loss of a loved one. And it was done in a way that didn't try to *overplay* similarity between these things, but rather let each one be its own experience, each speaking differently to the centrality of loss and recovery to the human experience. It left me just kind of in awe over the bravery of living. Which is a lot, for a romance!

As I kind of hinted at above, there was a voice in my head that wondered if the actual, concrete love story of Eddie and Mark didn't get the tiniest bit lost under all that thematic work. And maybe it did? I certainly didn't feel quite as desperate for the catharsis of them getting together as I did with Nick and Andy. But I loved it, just the same.

So, the second thing I was wary about was how much the threat of public outing was going to play a role in this story. I think it could be argued that Cat Sebastian is writing in a genre climate where both other historical eras (like the regency), and other types of sports romance (like contemporary hockey romance), are already so wonderfully saturated with narratives of queer acceptance that midcentury baseball romance appears as a genre space in which the threat of outing can be newly reinscribed. And I'm always ... a little wary, especially keeping in mind my reader positionality as a cis queer woman writing this in 2024, about how the "threat of outing" narratives in mm historical romance is working.

I don't presume to have an answer to that, but I will say that one thing that resonated a LOT with me in this book is how un-binary Sebastian's approach to "the closet" and "outing" is here. Which is to say, first of all, the blurb is kind of misleading: this is NOT a romance where Mark wants to live fully out after a life of secrecy, and Eddie is terrified of being outed as a gay sports player. Rather, it's just as true that Mark wants to keep Eddie safe by NOT being public in certain ways, as much as it is that Eddie really longs to have his queerness be recognized by key people around him. The question of being "out" is, technically, a source of plot here, but it's one where both MCs have a lot of time and patience and understanding for the complexities of that issue. Similarly, I loved the recognition that being "closeted" or "out" is not, in fact, a binary switch-flip for Mark and Eddie: they get to kind of patchwork together a network of people who know only what the two men want them to know about their lives and identities and intimacies. I loved both the care and the nuance that went into that.

And, jeez, there's so much more I loved about this book that doesn't really fit into the confines of my review. GEORGE (*sobs*). Everything going on with Ardolino. Eddie crying over Mark's dog. The jar of cherries. MARGINALIA! I just loved it all a lot.

Anyway, these are just my ramblings, and I'm looking forward to hearing what a lot more people think about this book, and these issues, once they've had the chance to read it.

Slow burn, grumpy reporter, and golden retriever baseball player?? Say less! I absolutely knew that this would be like catnip for me just based on that alone, but Cat Sebastian's We Could Be So Good was also my top romance of 2023 so I just knew that this was going to be an absolute 5 star read for me, and indeed it was.

It's been quite some time since I finished this book and I truly don't know that I can talk about it coherently yet. Here's what I do know - it's going to at least be one of my top romances of the year. THE YEAR! I would protect Eddie and Mark with my entire heart and I want every good thing ever to happen to them. I highlighted so many quotes that I truly don't think I could pick just one to highlight here. Cat's writing is just so incredible - it's evocative, emotional, and so deep while also being really truly funny.

Eddie, my sweet golden retriever sunshine boy...oh what can I even say. I just loved him so so much. He was so incredibly sweet and thoughtful and open. UGH he's just so goodddddddd.

Oh and my little black cat Mark - so damaged and yet still so capable of love. The representation of grief here is also really spot on and his protection of Eddie was so so sweet. Gosh I just love them both so so much.

The scene where Eddie tells Mark that he loves him was also just so perfect and quintessentially them - like I couldn't have pictured a more perfect scene for them. Oh, and the cameos we get from Andy and Nick were just perfect too!

"He feels like every part of him is wrapped around Eddie, like they're tangled up in something dangerous and lovely and terribly, terribly precious"

Thank you so much to Avon and Netgalley for the eARC. All thoughts and opinions are my own and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

Cat Sebastian has always reigned supreme when it comes to historical queer romance and YOU SHOULD BE SO LUCKY is lucky (see what I did there) to be added to the list. Handling queerness in a time like the 1950-1960s where you could be blacklisted from your career if outed seems to be my recent hyperfixation, so I was eating this up. As also Cat Sebastian handles her characters with care and compassion and also doesn't have erroneous homophobia that makes me sick to my stomach which cannot be said for all historical queer novels. With all tof that said, I ate it up and you will too.

This was one of the most expansive romance novels I've ever read. I wanted to live in this book. It felt luxurious. Every page, every sentence, every plot point was so loved.

This is my second book by Cat and it lives up to the hype I had in my head. I loved We Could Be So Good by her last year, and I loved this one just as much. You Should Be So Lucky is set in the same world, mid-century NYC, when queer love was mostly hidden away. But this was so much more than a queer romance. It was a book of grief, longing (for love and for living authentically), and second chances. It is heartbreaking and real how her characters navigate being queer in 1960.

Eddie and Mark are both complex and relatable. Cat breathes life into her characters. You see their strength and their flaws and root for them anyway. I love how we to get to experience growth with both characters. I especially enjoyed how their initial connection beyond a working relationship was through sharing books.

Cat puts a great deal of research into her writing. I will certainly be working through her backlog and look forward to reading more.

I'm rounding up from 4.5. This is a lovely story of grief, struggle, perseverance and love. I don't typically pick up historical romance reads, although calling 1960 historical is a bit depressing(😆). The story follows Eddie, a 22 year old queer baseball player traded to an expansion team in NYC. He's blindsided by the trade news and his temper got the best of him causing him to insult his new team and teammates leading to an awful start in NY. Mark is a writer at the Chronicle, a NY paper. Well, technically Mark quit over a year ago, but he keeps showing up. Mark is grieving the death of his lover, William. Mark is tasked with writing about Eddie to help bring attention to the new team and maybe figure Eddie and his struggles out. Eddie is struggling in the new environment, his teammates aren't speaking to him, no one knows that he's gay and he has no friends close by. Mark takes the assignment and gets to know Eddie. They slowly realize that the other one is queer and that they can talk and lean on each other. It's a slow burn, but worth watching it unfold. It was great to see Mark trust Eddie's feelings and decisions and work through his grief. It was also great to see Eddie learn to embrace his new team and persevere through his struggles on the field. Eddie's confidence in their relationship was inspiring considering the consequences in the 1960 climate. The supporting cast of characters are fantastic and help move the story along. Great read.

Mein Leseerlebnis

In der ruhig erzählten m/m Baseball romance lernen sich zwei Männer über den Verlauf einer Baseball-Saison kennen und verlieben sich dabei ineinander.

Das Leben der beiden Helden wird von der Autorin mit viel Gefühl erzählt und als Leserin hatte ich kein Problem damit, mir die beiden Helden als echte Personen vorzustellen. Auch konnte ich mich gedanklich gut ins Jahr 1960 transportieren. Dadurch waren die Einschränkungen in der Selbstentfaltung der beiden Helden für mich greifbar und haben mich emotional tief berührt.

Auch wenn der Alltag der beiden Helden durch Einschränkungen in Bezug auf ihre Liebe geprägt ist, so wirkte der Liebesroman auf mich doch hoffnungsvoll und nicht deprimierend.

So schnell werde ich die beiden Helden und ihre schöne Liebesgeschichte nicht vergessen.

🖤🖤🖤🖤 1/2

Für wen?

Wer ruhig erzählte und zugleich intensive, historische Liebesgeschichten mag, die im Jahr 1960 spielen, dem kann ich die vorliegende m/m romance ans Herz legen. Und die Liebesromane der Autorin ganz generell.

Another utterly perfect romance from Cat Sebastian. You Should Be So Lucky deals with grief, family, and loneliness in such compassionate, gentle ways. The love story at its heart is so true, so generous, and so open-hearted, and I cannot recommend it enough.

This one took me through all of the emotions. I laughed, I teared up, I squealed like a school girl. Cat takes such care with the way she presents difficult topics. Mark was so special to watch transform from a grieving writer to a man in love. I loved how heavy this was on the baseball love/representation as I have been getting more and more into sports romances recently!

I will post a review on my instagram on release day. @thatbookishteach

I have yet to find a Cat Sebastian book that has failed to make me laugh, cry, and leave the story with a long list of new characters I will hold forever in my heart. You Should Be So Lucky continues the tradition.

We follow a journalist struggling with grief and heartbreak, and a baseball player struggling with anxiety, anger, and a batting slump the should-be rookie of the year should NOT be having. Mark and Eddie are meant to work together to create a weekly column that gives Eddie and his team some good press during his abismal performance, but something more precious than great pr blooms.

There were so many topics covered in this book such as grief, social anxiety, and fear of failure - all done with such care and nuance. This also takes place in the 1960s so we dive into what it meant not only to be a gay man in that time, but also a gay man in the public eye and I loved the honesty of that conversation.

I left the book wanting so much more of every single character and will be recommending it highly!

You Should Be So Lucky is a queer historical baseball romance about a young star shortstop in a batting slump and the grieving reporter assigned to write about him.

When I heard there was a book with all my interests in one niche subgenre, I knew I had to read it. And I’m glad I did! YSBSL is a slow and gentle delight that still deals with heavy topics like life after a loss you can’t properly acknowledge and living an authentic life when your identity is criminalized.

The (at first) reluctant writer and pathetic subject angle worked well for me. I loved Eddie’s faith in the relationship and his determination to win Mark over. And Mark slowly working through his grief and (crankily) falling in love. I was glad to see this was actually a baseball book, with both main characters (and most of the side characters) involved in the game in interesting ways that all showed major love for the sport.

My main/only issue was the lack of a significant plot. It felt like it dragged somewhat without high stakes or conflict going on. But I can see this as a plus for anyone who wants a softer read.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read and honestly review this ARC.

Cat Sebastian has quickly become an autobuy author for me with this follow up to “We Could Be So Good”. A beautiful exploration of grief, love, and living as queer individuals in the 1960s. I love the setting, both time period and in the world of journalism/baseball. The reflection on baseball as a sport and a culture made me appreciate how lucky I was to be raised as a fan and to witness games and sports history. I left thoroughly immersed in the life of a struggling player who is also just a human who is learning how to live. I also don’t think I’ve ever read a better storyline/description of a dog than I experienced with Lula. This was just so so perfect and I can’t wait to buy a physical copy and reread both books in like two months 😂

Thanks to Avon and NetGalley for the ARC!

Cat Sebastian historical romance + baseball + grumpy journalist + down on his luck ball player? Sign me UP.

I was dying with questions about Mark Bailey after WCBSG. A journalist that reviews queer books in the 50’s and seems to have some secrets of his own piqued my interest. And baseball is one of the few loves of my life so I was all in for this book.

And I loved it. Obviously. It’s much softer in tone than WCBSG (which was delightfully angsty) but dealt with sadder material. But it never feels *sad*. It’s hopeful. It’s about being down on your luck and trying to get back to who you used to be before the Big Shift happened (Mark after his partner passed and Eddie after his career spiraled after being traded). And it’s two pretty unlikely lovers finding each other and working to be together despite the obstacles of y’know being queer in a time period where it’s illegal.

There’s a lot of grief work happening here. And I LOVED that Cat talks about how you can grieve things that aren’t people. Like your home. Who you used to be. The people that are still alive, but far away. And Mark and Eddie do it together. The relationship is cozy in the way all CS book couples are cozy. But they’re not without trials. Mark is afraid to dive in head first with Eddie due to almost a decade of hiding who he was and who he loved, to the point of finding out about his partner’s funeral services from the obituary section. But Eddie is so…optimistic in a way Mark needs. And Mark is level headed in a way Eddie needs. They’re so perfect for each other and it’s a slow burn fall before they get on the same page. But it’s perfect for them and their story.

Plus there’s a snooty dog that stole the page everytime she appeared. Go Lula, girl.

Thank you to Avon and Cat Sebastian for an ARC copy! All thoughts and opinions are my own!

I rarely give five-star ratings, and now I think I've done three in a row. What's up with that? Never fear, the streak won't last—which is a fitting way to start a review of a baseball romance.

Cat Sebastian is so good at writing quiet stories, and this, I think, is my favorite of hers in a while. Even so, it's strange for a story about a professional baseball player to be as peaceful as this one is, and especially given the historical setting, I kept waiting for a horrible shoe to drop. <spoiler>It doesn't. Or... not <i>that</i> shoe, anyhow.</spoiler>

Despite that constant underlying tension (which is right there on the page, pretty much from the start)—and the many threads of grief and loss that run through the whole book—the men themselves are stalwart, and their love grows steadily and faithfully. I suspect I'll enjoy this story even more the second time through.

My thanks to the publisher/NetGalley for an advance copy of this book.

We are all lucky to be living in a world where Cat Sebastian is writing romance. This book is 2% plot, 98% character exploration and development. It takes a master of the craft to make a book like this work, to make it compelling and magnetic.

Sebastian deploys 3rd person present to great effect, showing us the evolution of Mark and Eddie’s thoughts about themselves and about each other. She has a knack for describing a feeling that is at once so specific and also so easily generalizable. With economical prose, she builds layers of understanding that seem to coalesce suddenly, conveying so much meaning in a single word or phrase or glance or touch that it takes your breath away.

Empathy is a through line in these books- Mark and Eddie are so careful with each other and what they are going through, individually and together. Sebastian never judges her characters for their insecurities or their choices, an especially fine needle to thread in this book when it would have been so easy to allow the reader to make comparisons between Mark’s former lover and Eddie. But Sebastian isn’t interested in anything that unfair or clean cut. Grief and opening himself up to love again show Mark different facets of himself without taking away from what came before. For Eddie, leaving home and facing adversity reveal new depths within himself too. And baseball is a lovely metaphor here- as with Eddie grappling his way to a new swing, each man learns how to construct the life they want with conscious choice and intention , no longer able to rely on instinct because they know what it feels like to lose something integral. Rarely does a book actually bring me to tears, but the precious, hard won emotional connections in this one did.

How to possibly enumerate the ways this book is amazing? Mark and Eddie connect through late night phone calls discussing books of varying quality with latent or overt gay undertones. Eddie has a praise kink (of course he does he’s such a good boy) and Mark likes anything as long as Eddie is intensely into it. Each side character is fleshed out- Eddie’s mom and coach and teammate, Mark’s aging colleague— none of them are tokens. Even Lula the dog has a fully realized personality! It’s a marvel. You know that feeling when you read a good romance and the sweetness and joy and love just bubble up inside of you even once the book is over? I’m going to ride that feeling for a while.

So achingly sweet and heartfelt that I’d inexplicably find myself in tears during moments that were decidedly Not Sad. And then, of course, there were the actual tear-jerker moments. I can’t get over how much the exploration of grief, perseverance, and piecing yourself back together affected me. This concept doesn’t only apply to Mark, but Eddie, as well, and even Eddie’s team. How do you keep going when you’ve suddenly lost parts of yourself so integral to who you are? Or, when it seems like no matter how hard you try, you just keep striking out? (literally)

Books on grief are almost always guaranteed to hit me hard, but there’s an added layer here that makes it even more affecting. Mark is grieving his partner of several years, William, and their relationship was kept secret to protect William’s career. To know how deeply you have to love someone to conceal such a huge part of yourself and know that you would’ve done even worse just to have a second longer with them. To not know if they ever would’ve given everything else up to be honest about their relationship with you. To even live in a world that forces both of you to make these awful sacrifices. As if it’s not already utterly devastating to mourn someone so important to you, to have to do it all alone because nobody even knew about your relationship just leaves me at a loss for words. This doesn’t shy away from the weird ways grief can manifest itself and Eddie is SO understanding and lovely about it that it made my heart hurt. Mark deserves nothing less.

So basically…there were a lot of tears. Yet through it all, it still felt like a warm hug. There’s just something about how queer people and queer love are portrayed with so much care and compassion, especially considering the time period. And it’s not a Cat Sebastian book if I don’t abuse the highlighter. Why is she so good with words!! The power that the word “ours” alone can hold. The fact that such a simple concept can be so profound.

It’s impossible not to see how masterfully Sebastian writes romance. With electric tension and beautiful, organic development between captivating characters that blossoms into the sweetest, loveliest, most domestic relationship, it’s an absolute pleasure to read.

Oh and how can I forget to mention the way they bond over books, specifically queer books!! The importance of queer literature and representation Got Me in We Could Be So Good too, but here it’s even more salient to Mark and Eddie’s relationship. They frequently bond over books, and I’ve never been so jealous of anything in my life.

Huge thank you to Avon and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.