Pure Dumb Luck by Dahlia Donovan
On September 28, 2019 by Jaye
Pure Dumb Luck by Dahlia Donovan
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Blurb
When
two small-town country dudes win the lottery, they finally find the courage to
speak their truth.
An unexpected adventure follows.
Linwood “Woody” Robinson has a
routine. He works for his baby brother in construction, buys three lottery
tickets every week, and lusts after his best friend from high school. He’s done
the same thing for twenty years.
Eddison “Eddie” Howard owns the only
gas station in their small South Carolina town, sells lottery tickets, and
lusts after his best friend from afar. They joke around but never speak their
truth. He knows they’re cowards but can’t seem to find the courage to bridge
the gulf between them.
And then they win eighty million dollars.
Life changes.
They go from never talking about their feelings
to facing the world together.
Can anything pull them apart?
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Excerpt
âGo inside. Buy your lottery tickets. Shoot the shitâall calm and natural-like.â Woody gripped the steering wheel of his pickup truck tightly, trying to talk himself into getting out of it. A familiar pep talk. Familiar and oft repeated. âYouâve known Eddie since elementary school. Youâve been staring at his ass since he played quarterback to your running back in junior high. No point in getting all fucking weird around him now.â
Patting the bobblehead football player on his dashboard for good luck, Woody reluctantly slipped out of his truck. He slammed the door and plastered a grin on his face. Lottery tickets wouldnât buy themselves.
And Eddie had already seen his truck. If he ran away now, heâd never hear the end of it. The temptation to get back into his vehicle was strong.
Câmon.
This is not even close to the hardest part of your day.
Except it had definitely become the most difficult daily event. Woody had never considered himself a coward, yet every single morning, he walked into the gas station to see his best friend, the person heâd been in love with for years, and said nothing beyond small talk.
He never told the truth of the ache in his heart growing too painful to ignore. He couldnât. What if Eddie rejected him?
âYour usual?â
Woody grinned at Eddie, who ran the family-owned gas station in their little country town nestled in the middle of a national forest in the southern Appalachian Mountains. âYou know me. Boring as shit. Iâm consistent, at least.â
âOne large coffee, one pack of powdered donuts, and three lottery tickets. Two for you, one for me.â Eddie rolled his dark brown eyes and held out a large hand for the card Woody held out to him. âYou never change, dude. Youâve been doing this for twenty yearsâsince high school. I know Coach said you were full of dumb luck, but I donât think he meant with the Mega Millions.â
âHave a little faith, Eddie.â He grabbed both his breakfast and the lottery tickets, winking at his oldest friend, who hadnât changed much in the thirty years since theyâd known each other. Still as fucking hot as the day I first saw him in the shower at the gym. His warm brown skin had glistened under the shower. Maybe stop thinking about Eddie naked in the middle of the gas station. âWe still on for fishing this weekend?â
âUnless you get lucky with your numbers. If you do, weâll go fishing on a yacht instead of your granddaddyâs rickety old boat.â He tapped a finger against the ticket stub in Woodyâs hand. âGo on. Get your ass out of here. Youâre ruining the atmosphere. Plus, I like watching you leave.â
For the past twenty years, theyâd danced around each other. Woody had given up on anything happening between them outside of harmless flirting. Maybe it was too clichĂŠdâtwo former jocks who fell in love on the football field finally getting their chance in their late thirties.
It sounded like a cheesy movie plot.
The only way Iâm getting lucky at this point is with the lottery tickets.
And Iâm all out of luck with that as well.
Review
I knew I had to read this book, because Iâd accepted a review copy from Other Worlds, Ink. I found myself putting it off, though. I was afraid. Iâd read another book by Donovan a couple of months ago (link here) and it was everything I love about romance. What if Pure Dumb Luck didnât measure up?
Spoiler alert: everything measured up.
Allow me to share screen shots of my Facebook posts while I read this. (And yes, this is my personal account. You can probably find it if you want, but youâll have to see cat pictures and listen to me talk about youth hockey.)
I got an ARC from an author whose last book I ADORED. As in, I couldnât get enough of it. And I was all frustrated with myself because I didnât get as much work done as I wanted to today, but then I said âscrew it,â made a bracelet, and opened the Kindle. And when I remembered it was time to read this authorâs book, a big smile crossed my face.
And then PANIC. What if this one doesnât live up to the last one, which was everything beautiful and true and loving and okay there was murder, but it was the best kind, where youâre seriously cheering for it? Iâm like a chapter in and Iâm already in love with the two leads, but WHAT IF I DONâT LOVE IT AS MUCH?
In comes The Kitten, who head-butts me. Iâm being ridiculous. I need to find some chill. I will love the book. I will celebrate the book. The book brought me a smile within seconds of opening it up. There is no need to panic.
The Kitten is wise. Iâm pretty sure heâs also hungry, but heâs wise.
Top of Form
9Terrence Jones, Laura Hayes and 7 others
Bottom of Form
J.V. Speyer
Update on that ARC I was reading: I have finished ye book. There was no murder. But it was still beautiful and romantic and delightful and perfect and everything that is good and pure in this world. J. Scott Coatsworth you probably know which one it is
7Laura Bethard, Annie Swafford and 5 others
Comments
So thatâs the situation. This book is wonderful, and I wonder if anyone who doesnât fall in love with the two leads has a soul. The two leads are characters in a small town in South Carolina. Theyâve been best friends their whole lives. Theyâre both out, and have been for a while. One has a supportive family, one has a supportive brother. They live their lives. Then one of them wins the lottery and everything changes.
More or less.
Do you remember back to when you were a kid? You had your bestie, and you had a big elaborate plan about what youâd do with them if you won a gazillion dollars in the lottery/the school raffle/found it in the gutter/whatever? I know I did. Pure, Dumb Luck is the book of those dreams, grown up.
Okay, my dreams didnât get quite so sexual. The book isnât explicit, but the two mains definitely have a higher libido than twelve year old me.
My only complaint about this book â and itâs minor, so minor â is that thereâs not any real internal conflict. This is fine. The world we live in is pretty much all conflict these days and it felt amazing to let go and just be immersed in these guysâ world. They love each other, they support each other, and thatâs it. Isnât that what we all want in our lives? Someone who supports us and has our back no matter what?
There is a little bit of external conflict in the form of Woodyâs parents, but itâs comparatively minor as a plot point. This book is literally pure joy. Pick it up, wallow in it, and re-read it every day the news from the real world gets to be too much. I know I will be.
2 comments
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Thank you so much. *ugly cries into tea* lol
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