Just My Luck by Adele Parks

Just My Luck by Adele Parks

Published by MIRA ISBN 9780778331735

Trade paperback, $17.99, 384 pages

Adele Parks' domestic drama Just My Luck begins with an intriguing premise, one that many of us wish for- what would you do if you won the lottery? 

Three families have been friends since the birth of their children fifteen years ago. Each month they get together on a Saturday evening for dinner, and they put money into the pot to play the national lottery. Lexi Greenwood, "the woman everyone knows as the fixer, the smiler- some may even slightly snidely call a do-gooder" collects the money and buys the ticket, playing the same numbers each month.

Lexi and her husband Jake are less-well off than the other two couples, and one Saturday evening the other two couples decide that the lottery is "too common" and decide to stop playing. The following week their numbers were drawn, and Lexi and Jake are the big winners of nearly 18 million pounds, a life-changing amount of money.

Lexi is cautious about their win, wanting to take it slow and figure out how best to handle their new situation. Jake and Emily (their 15 year-old daughter), buy expensive new clothes, a fancy sportscar for Jake, luxury vacations, and a huge new home. Lexi fears this money will turn them into people no one likes.

Right away things become complicated. Three people break into their home while Lexi is home demanding money and threatening her. Family, people they don't know, and charities all over the world send them requests for money. The two couples who stopped playing demand their fair share of the money, claiming that Lexi and Jake are cheating them.

Emily's best friends are the children of the two couples, including her boyfriend Ridley. The lottery win shows the cracks in all their friendships, and even in Jake and Lexi's marriage. Lexi is forced to take a leave of absence from her job at the Citizen's Advice Bureau helping people in need when people mob her place of employment.

Just My Luck has some twists and turns you don't see coming, and Parks does a good job keeping the reader engaged and guessing. As you read it, in the back of your mind, you wonder how you would handle the situation. Would the money change you or reveal the person you truly are? Jake and Lexi are both keeping secrets from each other, secrets that create an crackerjack of an ending. Adele Parks does a fantastic job combining domestic drama with suspense, in a page-turner of a story.

Thanks to Harlequin for putting me on the Winter 2021 Mystery & Thriller Tour.

Friday 5ive- March 26, 2021

Welcome to the Friday 5ive, a weekly blog post featuring five things that caught my attention this week. Can you believe that it is the last Friday in March already? This month has flown by.

1)  Spring is here and we passed by The Mark Hotel in our neighborhood which has this lovely cart of flowers outside their front door to brighten everyone's day.

2)  We had our annual St. Patrick's Day dinner on Saturday, a few days late. I made the traditional corned beef and cabbage dinner, with carrots and Irish champ potatoes. The highlight of our dinner is always the Irish Bread Pudding with Caramel Whiskey Sauce, our favorite dessert of the year. I found the recipe in Cooking Light magazine years ago, and it is a family legacy now. The recipe is here. This year I also found these cute cookies at Citerella, a gourmet food store in our neighborhood. They were tasty!

3)  With the weather turning nicer, I met my husband at La Villetta, a local Italian restaurant halfway between his office and our apartment. We ate outside, and I ordered an appetizer of figs stuffed with blue cheese and walnuts and wrapped in proscuitto, over a bed of greens with a light creamy dressing over all. The presentation was so pretty and it was delicious.

4)  I watched the Academy Award Best Picture nominee Nomadland on Hulu this week. Frances McDormand is deservedly nominated for Best Actress in her role as Fern, a 60-something woman who lost her husband, and then her job and home when the manufacturing plant where she worked at closed. Fern ends up living in a van, and traveling around the west looking for work. She works the holiday season at an Amazon fullfilment center, and follows her friends around working in jobs like maintenance at a campground. The movie is based on Jessica Bruder's book of the same name, and Chloe Zhao's magnificent direction of the movie has earned her an Academy Award nomination as well. The one thing that you take from this movie is how invisible women of this age can be. It's a thought-provoking, heart-breaking piece of art.

5)  I read two books this week, one nonfiction and one fiction. Dorothy Wickenden's The Agitators, tells the true story of three women who lived in Auburn in the 1860s- Frances Seward (wife of Henry Seward), Martha Wright, and Harriet Tubman- and fought for women's suffrage, and the abolition of slavery. It's filled with lots of fascinating historical facts about my hometown of Auburn, NY, and students of Civil War era-history will want to put this one on their To Be Read list. My full review will publish in April in The Citizen newspaper and online at auburnpub.com. 

Adele Parks' domestic drama, Just My Luck, asks the question "what would you do if you won millions of dollars in the lottery?" Three couples who have been friends for fifteen years since their babies were born play the lottery once a month together. When two of the families decide they no longer wish to play and drop out, the lone couple left hits the winning numbers the following week. What happens next reveals cracks in their friendship and marriages, affects their children, and may make you rethink playing Lotto every week. My full review publishes on Monday. 

Stay safe, socially distant, wear a mask, wash your hands, and get the vaccine when it's your turn. We are so close to getting back to some type of normalcy.

This post was shared with The Adventures of an Intrepid Reader's Weekend Cooking posts.