This started out interesting enough, a freak “low probability event” accident kills 7 million people, but that’s about where it stops being entertaining. Of course it’s nonsensical, and I’m sure if you like Chuck Tingle you’ll like it. That’s an important note. This is my first book by him, and I can see if you’re a fan, you’ll probably love this.

I didn’t fully know what I was getting into, but was able to roll with it, ultimately I found it got boring around the 50% mark, there was a real lack of character depth, which sure this is very much a plot book, but yea unfortunately this didn’t work for me.

Thanks to the publisher for the eARC.

Chuck Tingle has done it again! “Lucky Day” isn’t just a tale—it’s a full-body hug from the universe wrapped in sweet absurdity and sincere heart. This isn’t about getting pounded in the butt by luck—this is about discovering that sometimes the weirdest, softest moments can hit the hardest (emotionally speaking). Tingle delivers existential musings with the grace of a sentient spaghetti noodle and the depth of a love-asaurus rex. Five stars, would get lucky again!”

4.5 stars rounded up

This made my stats loving heart so happy. Tingle’s writing gets better every time I read a new book of his. Vera was a very dynamic and relatable character. Bringing light to biphobia? I loved it. I love Vera and Layne‘s work relationship and the juxtaposition of happy-go-lucky (ha! get it?) Layne with black cat Vera. Tingle hit the recipe for weird entertaining and very sharp horror novels. I liked how he conveyed Vera’s loneliness, isolation, and depression because it felt very real and relatable. This was an amazing read.

A fantastic union between a stoic, logical character and absolutely bizarre and unhinged events. I did have a little difficulty resonating with the main character at first, but by the end I felt like I knew her and really appreciated how it all turned out.

Not quite as solid as his previous novel "Bury Your Gays" in my opinion, but a very enjoyable read nonetheless. Chuck has a gift for thinking up the most unhinged scenarios and finding a way to make them work.

We'll most definitely be stocking this at our store and I'm sure it will fly off the shelf.

Mr. Tingle, I was not familiar with your game. What a wild ride this was.

The blend of absurdism and horror is beautifully done. Tingle’s twisted imagination shines brightest in the breathless sequences of gore and surreal terror. There’s a scene in a wave pool so gruesome it will make me think twice before dipping my toes into the deep end ever again.

Some of the broader, more otherworldly strokes – e.g., cosmic centipedes and literal voids in spacetime – kept me from fully embracing the premise. But the slick pacing ensures that no beat overstays its welcome, propelling the story forward with relentless energy.

Count me as a Tingle fan from here on out. This was a bloody good time.

In Chuck Tingle's latest, we meet Vera, who is celebrating a new job and a book publication. On this day, May 23, the world suffers a disaster dubbed the Low-Probability Event. Nearly eight million people died in improbable and totally bizarre ways … and I mean BIZARRE. Think of a freak accident in Final Destination style cranked up to max volume, then maybe you'll have an idea of what this book contains. We pick up with Vera after these horrors and how bleak her life as become. Then, an agent knocks on her door to discuss some ghosts from her past and we are taken on a cosmic ride that rivals any multiverse. But, as is usual of a Chuck Tingle story, this one has a lot of hear and PROVES LOVE. Thank you so much to Tor Nightfire and NetGalley for the ARC. You can pick this up when t publishes August 12, 2025 wherever you buy your books!

With a different author, this could've gone in a bunch of different politically gross directions. But knowing Tingle's whole deal gave me the trust to really enjoy this and trust what he was going to do. It ended up being a very smart, loving, well-written (gross, horrifying) story that I deeply enjoyed.

Thanks to NetGalley & Tor Publishing Group for the early copy in exchange for an honest review.

This was still a very entertaining book, 3/5 stars isn't bad at all.

I think it suffers from a strong first act and a weak second act. The logic and probabilities stuff being explained was going over my head though, lol. I feel like this would be a very fun movie to watch if it was ever adapted.

Thank you so much for giving me the opportunity to read and review this book.

I love Chuck Tingle, and I love that he's able to take very real issues in the world and frame them in such an interesting way and with care and intent. Existentialism aside, bringing bi erasure into the story and mixing that with the main character's struggles after the LPE - was wonderfully done. Existing and living are such broad and vast concepts, but they played such a central part to this story, and I thought it was beautiful.

The characters that Tingle writes are always so flawed, but in a very real manner. I thought that Vera was dynamic and developed in a way that made sense for how she approaches and navigates the world. I thought the juxtaposition of Vera and Layne, with their contrasting world views and how they approach life, brought humor to an otherwise serious topic. Their interactions and bickering were great.

While not my favorite of his three horror books, it still did such a great job of pulling me in and holding my attention. The pacing was great, in my opinion, and I really enjoyed getting to travel along with the characters as they learned and discovered the meanings/reasons behind the LPE.

Tingle has managed to, again, write a well-crafted horror that touches on very real ideas.

Imgur Post scheduled for August 12th
Blog post goes live August 12th
Youtube Review going in up on May 16th
Amazon and B&N reviews going up when available


**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.