I am pleased to announce that the long (long!) awaited sequel to Getting Lucky is finally ready and is launching April 1st. It’s available for pre-order on Amazon here and Kobo pre-order here.
When I first wrote Getting Lucky I didn’t actually think of it as a series, it was a fun side story that I just got a bit carried away with. However over the last three years I have often found myself wondering what happened to our unlikely hero and his fuzzy sidekick.
Eventually I got to the point where I just had to know, so I sat down to continue the adventure. Unfortunately I made the classic author error of coming up with a clever title before I had figured out what the story was. Back then the sequel was called Lucky in Love and featured a shoe-horned in love interest that did nothing but following Lucky around being pathetic. That entire chunk of the story felt entirely forced, and as a result I never really found my mojo with the rest of the book. I tried to push my way through, assuming it was just the usual first draft uncertainty that would resolve itself once I was done, but even after I’d written ‘The end’ there was still that nagging doubt that it wasn’t good enough. I popped the sequel in a drawer and vowed to come back to it with fresh eyes a few months later.
That fresh read through highlighted the glaring issues with the story and forced me to carve out large chunks. I didn’t just kill my darlings, I butchered them! That left some pretty big holes in the story which needed to be filled and it took me some time to find a suitable replacement. Then one day, completely out of the blue, I knew exactly what to do. I sat down at the computer and the words started flowing, and just like that Lucky Shot was born.
There were still smaller, less obvious issues in this new draft, but this time I’d learn from my earlier errors and I enlisted help. I reached out to a fellow #Flashdog whose writing I love, the fantastic Brian Creek. He generously agreed to take a look and sent back dozens of very helpful and insightful suggestions. With his help I refined the story I was trying to tell and lost a few more pounds of story flab in the process. A huge thank you to Brian for all his help, the story would not have been nearly as good without you!
So what actually happens? Well I don’t want to spoil any of the fun, but I can say that it starts up a month after Getting Lucky ended. Character wise there is a mix of new rogues and the return of some old favourites, although not always exactly how you might expect. Our unlikely heroes must deal with a host of new challenges, including killer mimes, murderous gangs and some surprises from karma. Basically, things are about to get a whole lot worse for them!
I’m really happy with how the sequel has turned out and I hope that you are too. I can’t wait for everyone to read it. Don’t forget to let me know what you think, either in reviews or in the comments below. I’d love to hear from you!
