Beginner's Luck

I don’t read a lot of romance, I seem to enjoy a twisted mind more than a loving heart, but whenever I pick up a Kate Clayborn novel, I know I’m in for a treat, and Beginner’s Luck did not disappoint.

Beginner’s Luck is book one in the Chance of a Lifetime Trilogy, with each book focusing on one of the three best friends. In this one, we have Kit, who is a scientist and not a gambler, having a night on the town with her two besties, Greer and Zoe, and while buying a bunch of snacks to go with all the drinking, one of them decides to buy a lottery ticket, although Kit can’t remember who.

They end up winning a large jackpot and Kit is the only one who decides to keep working at her job, but she does buy a large fixer-upper Queen show more Anne with her winners, since as a child she never had a stable home.

Then comes Ben, who happens to be in town because his father had a bad fall, and tries to recruit Kit to a big company without doing his homework on her first. And he fails big time, but doesn’t quit trying because there was an instant attraction.

Kit and Ben’s chemistry is wonderful, and over time they realize that each has what the other has been lacking in their lives. Ben shows his interest (love) to Kit by doing acts of service at her new home, since his dad owns the local junk and salvage yard… and that is my love language, so who could I not like Ben’s character!

A sweet and funny (mainly with Ben’s father and their new hire) romance with just the right amount of steamy adult moments to make me want to read the next two books in the series, Luck of the Draw and Best of Luck. show less

Well...yay!
This feels like it belongs on that shelf with Act Like It or The Hating Game (if anything belongs on that shelf with the Hating Game) in terms of contemporary debuts. There were so many many great things about this book.

The heroine and her relationships: I'm including her relationship to her job, her friends, her town, her brother (they had me tearing up-sibling relationships are so crazy deep and this was well done IMO). What was wonderful is this all gave us a great idea of who Kit is. And who she wanted to be. And girl, I'm all for comfort zones and an ambition of having a stable, content life. That said, it was truly wonderful how this STEM heroine was portrayed, for that piece wasn't at all glossed over and I even show more noticed subtle and wonderful things by the author--For example, there was no assumption by the hero that a doctor was male-and then the heroine describes her-things like this make me giddy. It is a sign of a wonderful feminist author. I lamented a few weeks ago about someone telling us how competent a STEM heroine was (again!) and how a book tried to have such a feminist feel that it actually weakened this point for me. This was not the case in Beginner's Luck. Our heroine is competent, and they continually show us.

So the secondary characters were all wonderful and I want to befriend every one of them. I cannot wait to read on for the next installment of (or maybe the one after that as I have high hopes for Greer)

And then there's the hero. And the hero's dad. And the hero's, well everything felt very purposeful here too. He had me when he told her upon first meeting "I like you." And that first kiss..whew...He's not perfect. He holds his hopes and wants close, but it is clear from the outset that he begins to care deeply about Kit. He humors and even adores her friends for being who they are to her, he LISTENS. I kept finding myself thinking how adored that makes people feel to have someone who pays such careful attention to them. And there's that heartbreaking fuck-up that was not really his doing, but certainly led to his undoing. The hospital scene killed me, both at the time and when they referred back to it. I don't usually cry from books, but this one burned. "I'll do anything." And the fact that that included leaving. sigh. And he certainly had me when he looked around his bare Houston apartment and realized he didn't want to be there anymore.

Then there's the final chapter in the salvage yard. "Don't expect his back." And then there's what follows....


Maybe I should've come down from this book a bit, it was such a delightful surprise (despite two reviewers I follow closely adoring it as well!). My review feels unfocused and gushy, but it just makes me so happy to read a great book with excellent secondary characters and a love story that feels totally fresh. show less

Romancelandia was all aflutter about this book so I had to check it out. And now I see why! Kit is a genius. She's a smart, amazing and talented scientist, a role that needs to appear more in books (women scientists) all over the place. She's got two super close friends who are more like family than anything. So now we've got super smart female scientist AND strong female relationships. Then we meet Ben. And she puts him in his place quickly. So super smart, super witty, doesn't take crap female main character who also has amazing friends? This book is like the holy grail of all the things I didn't know I was missing in a romance novel.

I fell further in love when we meet Ben's dad, Sharon and River. Love, strength, humor and warmth are show more shown in so many different ways in this book that it's hard to not have a smile on your face while reading. And even when the inevitable misunderstanding happens (it is a romance after all), it's dealt with in such a way that the characters stay true to who they are, even while compromising.

The book is 99 cents on Amazon right now and worth every penny and more. I highly recommend you pick this one up sooner rather than later. I cannot wait to read the rest of the series.

**Cross-posted to my blog: https://thesebooksaremyfriends.wordpress.com/2019/01/19/beginners-luck-by-kate-c... show less

It's rare to read a romance that creates a complete world for both protagonists, but I felt like that's what I got here. Two people, with complex histories and villages of people who are part of their blood and chosen families, find love with each other despite lots of interesting, baked-in complications. It's so satisfying. And I liked how the author worked against trope by having an emotionally open, extroverted woman in science as the protag.

I find it hard to find romance novels that I can be bothered finishing, let alone reviewing. I liked Beginner’s Luck enough. It’s heading in the right direction, in terms of what I want from this sort of story, and it was a great distraction when I was feeling sick and miserable.

Kit loves her lab job at the university, she has two fabulous close friends with whom she’s won the lottery and she’s bought a house to renovate. And then a recruiter from Beaumont Materials tries to persuade her that she could be doing so much more. It’s easy to say no to Ben-the-recruiter-from-interstate who is offering her a job. It’s less easy to say no to Ben-the-local-boy-back-in-town-to-help-his-dad, who is offering to show Kit around his show more family’s salvage yard.

I like how the story is affirming of Kit’s desire to keep her current job and stay close to friends. It doesn’t dismiss this as being cowardly, a stage one needs to grow out of, but neither does it suggest that pursuing an ambitious career is always terrible, a sign of wrong priorities. I appreciated that balance.

“I’m really happy here. I don’t want to leave.”
Zoe’s brow furrows in concern, her eyes serious. “I know you don’t. And I’d never want you to. God, I’d probably have to be sedated for weeks if any one of us ever moved away. But [...] You get to decide what you do with your life, Kit. That’s the best luck we got on the day we bought that ticket. And considering things, trying new things—actually letting yourself take credit for something you worked really, really hard on—that doesn’t force you to decide one way or another. And whatever you’d decide—even if there was some light sedation involved—it’d be okay. We’d all be okay.” show less

I really liked this one. It took a little while. I get the feeling that first chapter should've gone through another edit pass. It felt...distant. But these characters affected me. I got mad at him. I got mad at her. The solutions are messy and a little scary, making the epilogue well worth its word count.

There are some filler words, some telling when showing was already happening, and the author really should've eliminated half of the "anyways" used. For me it was just annoying enough to drop a star. But I liked the core observation of the plot. Pain in our childhoods does damage. Good in our childhoods helps - but hurt makes deeper impacts than good does in our minds. We mean to surmount these bad things, but they are part of us, and show more crop up at terrible times. Luckily, the good is there, too. show less

Kit Averin is a smart research scientist who suddenly wins the lottery with her two best friends. She doesn't really let it change her life besides buying an old house of her own. She's gradually fixing it up using finds from Tucker's Renovations when she discovers that son Ben Tucker is also the recruiter trying to talk her into giving up her small college position to move to a corporate gig in Texas. Ben is also really nice and cute despite Kit's determination to not move or give up her well-loved job.
I first read Ms. Clayborn's Love Lettering which I absolutely loved and then went looking for more of her work. This is a nice contemporary romance featuring intelligent people (a la Penny Reid) wrestling with the demands of today's show more working world. It's nicely written and has a good supporting cast of characters. Kit and Ben are sweethearts and I was rooting for them all the way. Nice start to the series. show less