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**TL;DR**: Chuck Tingle gets better and better every time.
**Source**: NetGalley - thank you so much to the publisher!

**Plot**: How it made sense was so clever, and just weird enough to make sense. Well done Mr. Tingle.
**Characters**: Unlikable but also so lovable. I was cheering for these folks the whole way through.
**Setting:** We roam a bit but I loved the desert setting in the later half, it added a lot I feel to the story,
**Horror:** Oh my god. Yes. Just yes.

**Thoughts**:

Absurd Horror seems to be something I really enjoy. Lucky Day leans heavily into the ‘what is happening’ feeling you can get from some horror. You don’t know if you should laugh or look away and somehow you end up doing both (or in my case giggling wildly because that’s my fear reaction). Yet in the end, somehow he makes it make sense.

Vera is a black sheep, she experiences some intense trauma on the day of the Low Probability Event and after that she wallows in depression, suicidal thoughts, and the classic talk of the void and darkness. Agent Layne who drags her out into his investigation is the direct opposite. Golden Retriever, enjoy every moment type, the two make for a fantastic back and forth that grounds well against the absolutely wild events of this book.

Chuck Tingle, like always, also manages to fit some topical themes into this as well such as bi-erasure and how far the hand of government should reach. It’s not heavy handed, and worked so well into the overall story. I loved seeing him at work here.

The over the top nature of a lot of this isn’t going to be for everyone but if you’re strapped in and ready for it it’s fantastic. There are some notes of what feels like some Junji Ito inspiration as well, which delighted me to no end, and I had a blast. I can’t recommend this one enough, but do check your trigger warnings.

Four years ago, a bizarre disaster known as the Low-Probability Event (LPE) killed eight million people in a single day — deaths caused by statistically impossible accidents like flying fish, exploding manhole covers, and one particularly murderous chimpanzee with a typewriter.

Vera, a former statistics professor, lost everything that day — including her mother, who died moments after dismissing Vera’s bisexuality as nonexistent. Now, with her sense of order shattered, Vera is just surviving when Special Agent Layne knocks on her door. He’s investigating a suspiciously lucky casino that may be connected to the LPE… and possibly something worse.

Vera might be the only one who can stop another catastrophic event — if she can make sense of a world that no longer plays by the rules.

Chuck Tingle has become a favorite of mine with Camp Damascus and Bury Your Gays — and when I say favorite, I mean Bury Your Gays was one of my top reads of the year. It carved out a space in my chest and stayed there. So, yes, I came into Lucky Day with high expectations. While it didn’t hit quite the same emotional highs, it was still a four-star read: weird, sharp, and deeply entertaining. And that cover? Come on. Iconic.

Vera is such a great protagonist — grounded, prickly, grieving, and deeply shaped by a moment of bi erasure that hits hard and echoes throughout the novel. It’s not just a backstory note — it’s a core theme. The absurdity of the world unraveling is matched with how painful it is to be told you don’t exist. Even in chaos, identity still matters.

The tone is chaotic in the best Tingle way: there’s a pink cowgirl running a casino, statistically improbable carnage, and a government agent with golden retriever energy. But Vera’s emotional realism gives the story its gravity. That balance — between bizarre comedy and social commentary — is what makes Chuck Tingle’s horror so special.

If you like your horror surreal but heartfelt, and your commentary served with camp and compassion, Lucky Day is absolutely worth the spin.

4 stars

Thanks to NetGalley for an eARC of this title!

You know that meme with the 2 pictures side by side, one with a dude with his head in his hands with text saying nothing matters, and the other with a dude smiling and dressed like he's in a clothing ad from the early 90s with the same text? Yeah that's basically this book in a nutshell.

Really interesting concept, gnarly and horrific descriptions, unexpected commentary about the exclusion of bi folks from the queer community, everything I've come to expect from a Chuck Tingle novel. There was, in my opinion, one major flaw: lack of supporting cast. In Tingle's other novels the main character has always had people they can rely on and it created a sense of community and support. Due to Vera's depression, she has shut out all her friends. The only support she has through the novel is Agent Layne, but even then he is not always the most understanding person. It made the novel feels very isolating, which I didn't like, though if that was the point then mission accomplished.

Overall, luck as a cosmic force is an interesting topic, the struggle to accept one's existence as meaningful in the face of all the evidence to the contrary was poignant, brutal descriptions of violence that made my stomach turn, but wish there was more sense of community that is present in Tingle's other books.

This is my second Chuck Tingle book, and I'm happy I picked it up! Queer horror is one of my favourite genres, and Chuck Tingle never fails to deliver an entertainingly horrifying story. On May 23, nearly 8 million people are killed in freak accidents within a 20 minute span, dubbed the Low Probability Event, and Vera, a statistics professor, has her entire worldview turned upside-down. Years later, she's recruited by Special Agent Layne to investigate a casino for being suspiciously lucky, and it's during this that she gets deeper and deeper into the mystery of what caused the LPE.

First off, Chuck Tingle does very well at writing weird, gruesome deaths. I don't watch horror movies, because my brain gets adequately freaked out with the written word. And Lucky Day is rife with opportunities to describe the strange and freakish accidents that killed so many people, to the point where I am physically recoiling from my ereader because the scene is so vivid. While it makes me intensely uncomfortable, that's a good thing because that's the whole point of horror, and if it didn't make me feel that way, it would be pointless and boring.

I also think he does a really good job of writing unlikable characters in this one, because Agent Layne was getting on my last nerve with every word that came out of his mouth.

"I can't have toxic masculinity," he retorts. "I'm gay." INSANE thing to say!

He also acted as a foil to Vera, as the book gets into the outcomes of both of their lives after the Low Probability Event. They were in similar circumstances on that fateful day, but their paths in life went totally different directions. As well as Agent Layne, Vera's mother is also an extremely unlikable character, and her and Agent Layne both share the unfortunate trait of being biphobic as hell, and neither are afraid to share their views to Vera, who is bisexual. "Bisexuals aren't real" is a (flat-out wrong, to be clear) line of thinking that gets brought up multiple times through the story, and without spoiling anything, does manage to tie itself to the main plotline, which I appreciated. In each of the Chuck Tingle horror books I've read now, I really enjoy how he brings in some negative trope or idea about queer people and weaves it into his plot, like in Bury Your Gays, which deals with the trope of the same name. I haven't read Camp Damascus yet, but I'm interested to see what he gets into in that one.

My only complaint is that I wish the book was longer to give more time to dive into the aftermath of the LPE. The book is from Vera's point of view, and while she cut herself off from society and didn't do anything for four years (#depression), I'm sure the rest of the world still had to deal with everything and I was very curious to know what exactly was going on.

Basically, I enjoyed Lucky Day a lot, and I personally feel very lucky that I got to read an early copy! Thanks to Netgalley and Tor for the eARC in exchange for review!

Lucky Day by Chuck Tingle is a wildly fun and unexpectedly heartwarming ride that blends humor, romance, and a touch of the absurd. Tingle's unique writing style shines through with its playful, offbeat charm, making for a quick read that's both entertaining and uplifting. The story’s quirky characters and their heartfelt journey will leave you smiling and maybe even laughing out loud. It’s a delightful, feel-good book that proves Tingle’s ability to turn the most outrageous premise into something surprisingly sweet.

9/10

Chuck Tingle has done things a bit differently this time, leaning less into the horror elements of his writing (although there are some truly visceral descriptions that are horrifying throughout), instead leaning into an X-Files style of schlocky sci-fi, and let me tell you it pays off.

I wasn't 100% sold from the synopsis of this book but decided to give it a chance anyway because I really enjoyed both of Mr. Tingle's previous works. I am glad I took that leap as this is probably my favorite novel from him thus far. It is still a queer novel but that is less central to the overall plot here than in Camp Damascus or Bury Your Gays. Instead the plot of this book focuses on a casino who's business model seems financially impossible to turn a profit with, and yet they do. Our protagonist Vera wants to take them down, and it may be all she has left to live for.

Vera was a statistician, and made sense of the world through the lens of probability, bringing order to the chaos of her life. That is, until things got truly chaotic during the Low Probability Event (LPE). During the LPE seemingly impossible things happened all around the globe and all at once, causing the death of millions. Not just unlikely things, but things that seemed to be impossible, things such as, it raining fish, a chimpanzee in a Shakespeare outfit going on a murderous rampage with a typewriter in downtown Chicago, every single airplane of a specific model crashing into each other, oh and pigs flying, just to name a few. All of these, and many many more seemingly impossible events do take place throughout the book, and they take place in all the gory detail you would come to expect from Chuck Tingle... hell sometimes the level of grotesque, macabre, and horrifying detail that I have come to expect from Nick Cutter, and I mean that in the best of ways.

Throughout the book Vera questions the meaning of life, and well everything. More specifically she questions if it has any meaning at all. As cosmic forces seem to pull the answer to this question ever increasingly towards "no" Vera must decide if her life is worth living if she believes that it has no meaning. It is through this self reflective lens that we watch a story unfold that is part horror, part cheesy sci-fi, part absurdist comedy, but also part existentialist philosophy experiment. Despite how jumbled this may sound Chuck Tingle balances it all perfectly to create a book that is both entertaining as well as though provoking, while making you feel eerily uncomfortable throughout as in this book you REALLY never know what might come next.

How can you not love Chuck Tingle? This is the third book of his that I've read, and he blows me away each time.

Vera is a bisexual who is in a loving relationship with another woman and who is about to publish a book about probability. That same day, everything that has a one in a million chance of happening--happens. Hundreds of thousands are left dead from freak accidents, and the rest are left to pick up the pieces. Vera hides away, allowing depression to waft over her for years until Agent Layne enlists her as a consultant to figure out just how and why this day--this Low Probability Event--happened.

Vera goes through a tumultuous internal arc as she learns that maybe, perhaps, it's okay to care again, and it's okay to understand that maybe there is no meaning to life. But why should that stop her? Through laugh out loud characters, some of whom are certainly morally dubious, we take a trip of a lifetime as we discover just who and what is behind everyone's good or bad luck (and naturally, it's a very Tingle reveal).

But be warned: some of the bad luck scenes definitely posit this book squarely in the horror genre. There's blood, fish, and guns. There's also a lot of hope.

This is everything that a book should be: fun, heartfelt, earnest, and a little fucked up.

The way I ✨screamed✨ when I got this in the mail…you could say it was my lucky day 😉 But anywhooo I love @chucktingle and his wild, gory books. So I’m happy to say this one was just what my eyeballs needed. I always love the way that Chuck is able to blend something completely ridiculous with some every day horrors, makes it bloody andddd still manages to pull at my freaking heart strings. I felt for our FMC, Vera, the entire book and just wanted her to have her answers. I also wanted to punch a lot of characters straight in the face. Either way I couldn’t stop reading and it’s another amazing, thought-provoking, gory and imaginative book that has cemented Chuck as a forever autobuy author 🙌🏽

Is there a genre that Chuck Tingle can’t write? Lucky Day is a hybrid of existential horror, science fiction, and fantasy. This is an absurdist drama with lots of tongue-in-cheek humor and heart to boot.

Vera is a former statistics and probability professor who survived a disaster known as the Low-Probability Event, a series of freak accidents that killed eight million people in unique and bizarre ways. When a special agent shows up at her door, Vera learns he’s investigating a suspicious Las Vegas casino that is somehow connected to the countless deaths, and she may be the only one who can make sense of a world that doesn’t.

At this point I am fully on board with Tingle’s brand of chaos, and Lucky Day comes as a strong recommend for readers who appreciate esoteric horror – this an off-the-wall book that will keep you on the edge of your seat from start to finish. There are also plenty of in-jokes for fellow fans, including a nod to “Straight,” which might quite possibly be my favorite of his works so far.

A very special thanks to NetGalley and Tor Nightfire for the advanced copy!

Readers will be glad they took a chance on this book -- I know I am.

LUCKY DAY captures the kind of hope that gathers like dust in corners: it builds over time, without you noticing, and even when it's dark.

A tight story with excellent pacing; I finished in two days. I felt no lulls, even when our protagonist herself, Vera, is doing no more than staring at the ceiling. Her response to a world-changing, life-altering, reality-shattering series of events is relatable for a humanity that is barreling through the hot heels of the unprecedented.

Even as a person sensitive to descriptions of bodily harm, reading this novel was not difficult for me. The breakneck speed and absurdity helped me stomach the grim depictions of bizarre deaths. Still, it's not excessively gory; Vera's matter-of-fact perspective as a statistician comes through here. If you need to glaze over the blood, what you need to remember amid the chaos drives itself into you by the end.

This novel offers an optimistic penny after gruesome tragedy and loss: all the bad luck in the world can't totally eradicate the desire to survive. We have a future to look forward to -- mine includes more novels by this author.

The probability of me enjoying this read was high to begin with and it mostly delivered!

Horrific and unpredictable, so packed with absurdity that it would be hard to find a reader who wouldn't be shocked by the events that happen a mere two chapters in.

The dynamic of Agent Layne and Vera

is at first very reminiscent of that of Reagan Ridley and Brett Hand from Netflix's canceled show "Inside Job" and for the brief time I spent reading it filled the hole that their dynamic left. However, the unpredictability of Agent Layne makes it difficult to really get a solid read on the character and while it is technically thematically appropriate to have a character like that I don't know how well he served the narrative. I felt like there were character building moments that were lost in the unprobable sauce.

The ending though is WILD and I am glad to have read it.

Okay. I wanna start off by saying how much I REALLY wanted to love this book. I liked it well enough, but I wanted to LOVE this book. I understand where Tingle was going with it, but there were a few things that kind of...flattened it out for me.

I ADORED the opening chapters. The massive amounts of chaos, the insanity of it all. And then...you kinda...get plunged into something incredibly bleak and very very depressing. I GET what this was supposed to convey, and at times, even later in the book, one scene in particular comes back as a sign of hope as opposed to tragedy. But the initial event might even be more jarring than the opening chapters. And weirdly, that left a bad taste in my mouth for the rest of the book.

I figured it would probably get better, and for a while, it did. I liked the character of Jonah, I liked Vera, I liked the concept of "plot holes" and the like. But something about it felt...predictable. And like the plot holes (noun) as literal things in the book, I felt like I was missing a good chunk of information at some point. Maybe it's just me, maybe it was mentioned and I missed it, but I felt like I had a few too many "hold on..." moments.

And while the ending was...decent, I was a little...confounded by some character choices made.

I guess I had the bar set fairly high after Bury Your Gays, which I LOVED, and maybe I'll give this another chance when it gets published. Overall, I did love the writing and the concept was fantastic, but I'm sorry, Dr. Tingle, this wasn't this bud's personal favorite, I hope you understand.

CW: Gore, Existentialism, Biphobia/Bi-Erasure, Depression, Suicidal ideation

Tingle’s streak of great queer horror continues in Lucky Day. For me, the Looney-Tune-but-make-it-gory streaks of bad luck were nightmarish, in the sense of being nonsensical and gross—but they didn’t stick out to me nearly as much as the existential horror. Vera’s mindset as a disaster survivor, her struggle to overcome her (understandable) depression and stagnation, as a person whose existence others deny, as someone who wants to believe in SOMETHING amidst the odds… it all drew me in and made me want to stick with her, see her overcome. I may identify a little too much with Vera, but I think a lot of others will, too, and I NEEDED that as someone who finds the statistical background of the book theoretically interesting but psychologically exhausting.

I also love how Tingle balanced characters in this book to raise issues of identity, erasure, and motivation. Vera’s mom saying that bisexuals don’t exist? Expected. Cheerful, ice-cream-and-pie loving Layne, Vera’s government agent partner (and gay man) saying bisexuals don’t exist? Took my breath away, a painful stab from someone who should know better. Nothing in this book is simple or dichotomous – a lot of gray, a lot of self-defining, a lot of contextual questioning, but always with (at least for me) an appropriate amount of hope.

Some may not like the existential, philosophical bent of this novel, but for me, those are some of the truest horrors there are, and ones we all have to face. I highly recommend this book for those who enjoyed Tingle’s other works, fans of absurd, horrible imagery, and those who like their horror with a side of optimism.

Chuck Tingle has a way of writing that will give you whiplash from beginning to end. Lucky Day starts with a massacre and ends with a buzz and all along the way you’re not quite sure what you signed yourself up for when you started reading the book.
Vera’s doing her best trying to get through the trauma of the Low Probability Event and the rest of the world is trying to survive on luck, which we soon come to find out isn’t going to end well.

This was a hell of a book, start to finish, with some scenes (especially from the LPE) that will haunt me going forward. Great work

Chuck Tingle has done it again. This book was absurdly tragic. I was filled with existential dread while reading it and honestly I felt more dread than freaked out over the pretty gruesome happenings within the book. What made this book personally more horrific for me is that the Low Probability Event just so happened to take place ON MY BIRTHDAY. I read the date that the event was on and had to put down the book for a second to process it.
If I was Vera I would have reacted in the exact same way to everything. The dread was there, the body horror was there. It was a really great book.

Chuck Tingle can do no wrong, and I don't think I'll ever change my mind on that.

He handles the tough topics of a politically fraught climate, especially as a member of the B in LGBTQ+, and balances it against some of the most hilarious and outlandish tropes known to man.

The ability to have the reader laughing, crying, horrified, and hopeful all in one story is a gift that Tingle is the master of and I can't wait to see what comes next.

Perfect for fans of campy horror, body horror, and puns.

Nobody is writing fiction like Chuck Tingle. He is one of my favorite authors to talk about. A true legend and certified artist of his craft. He must be protected to ensure the weird fiction (and the tinglers) keep on coming. Thank you for the ARC I am so... Lucky.

I found Chuck Tingle through Bury Your Gays and I was blown away by how intricate the story was. I then read Camp Damascus and the story was simple yet the message was overwhelmingly strong. In Lucky Day, he balanced both story and message incredibly well.

Vera, a professor in Statistics and Probability is going to publish her book investigating a casino in Las Vegas. After the Low-Probability Event occurred on her publication date and thousands of people died, including Vera’s mom, she is left feeling a void and a depression so deep she doesn’t want to get out of the house. Until Agent Layne walks through her door and spikes her curiosity enough to get her out of the couch. Turns out, she might’ve been unto something with her research.

The way Chuck writes is so simple that I can read half the book in one sitting. Everything passes so fast and so smoothly and he writes just enough details to let your imagination run wild but also paint the picture almost entirely. This book had such graphic scenes that it was disturbing but at the same time I didn’t want to stop reading it. I could picture everything on the day of the LPE. I hope this gets adapted into a movie because I feel like it would be a great trip for people to see.

It would’ve been poetic if this book was released on May 23. But as the book teaches us, things don’t always go our way. Honestly, I’m so glad I got a chance to read the eARC thanks to Netgalley and TorNightfire.

This book grabs you by the throat and doesn't let go, spinning an uncanny blend of body horror, existential dread, and a haunting exploration of grief and chance. It starts with the Low-Probability Event (LPE), a day when 8 million people die in statistically impossible and brutal ways. The randomness is terrifying and sets the tone for a story as chaotic as it is calculated. Yes, it's a math joke. Vera, a former statistics professor, is raw and broken, shredding her logic and emotions to a pulp. When Special Agent Layne needs her help to chase a suspiciously "lucky" casino whose success might be the cause of the LPE, Vera jumps at the chance. Is that hope bubbling at the surface? Together, they navigate a world where connection is the only thing tethering humanity to sanity.

The narrative is sharp, smart, and deeply mournful, especially when it dissects how we make sense of tragedy and the random cruelty of life.
I absolutely loved this book. It's Tingle at his best. This buckaroo approves!

It's part horror, part philosophical sci-fi, and wholly unique. It challenges what you think about grief and existence while creeping you out with disturbingly memorable imagery. It's a chilling reminder that the universe doesn't always play fair or by any rules.

Thank you, NetGalley and Tor Publishing Group/ Tor Nightfire, for the opportunity to review the ebook.

Chuck Tingle's horror is like nothing else I've ever read. It has the beautiful beating heart of a deep understanding of humanity with the gore and creeping dread of the very best horror rolled into one. Chuck's books make me so happy and emotional and proud of my queerness. They show that we get to have just as big of a seat at the table of every genre while also not having our queerness be why life is hard and horrible. Chuck Tingle is the rarest kind of author - able to show the horrors of the world and what could be while reminding us that the world is beautiful and love is real and that hope is never dead. I can't speak highly enough of his books and Lucky Day is no exception. I absolutely loved the gore and unpredictability of this book. The chaos was so beautifully horrible and well written. Tingle always writes memorable characters that I love or hate in spades. All of the main cast of characters were flawed and fascinating and equally horrible and wonderful in turn. I absolutely loved Vera's journey back to the world and to herself amongst the chaos. The approach to the biphobia she faced and the possible route back to a connection with her lost love had me on the edge of my seat. This is such a wonderful book and Tingle really outdid himself here. He's a forever auto-buy author for me.