Review: The Luckiest by M.J. O'Shea and Piper Vaughn

Author: M.J. O’Shea and Piper Vaughn

Publisher: Dreamspinner Press

Pages/Word Count: 280 Pages

Rating: 5 Stars

Blurb: Rock star Nick Ventura has finally hit rock bottom. Jealous of his brother’s new love, he overindulges in his usual vices and winds up crashing his car into a department store in a drunken haze. Publicly humiliated and on the verge of jail time, he enters into a court-ordered rehabilitation program.

Nutritionist Luka Novak is flamboyant, effeminate, and the type of gay man bisexual Nick would normally sneer at. But his sunny nature hides a deep hurt caused by an unfaithful ex-boyfriend. As much as Luka knows he should be wary of Nick’s reputation, he’s drawn to Nick despite himself. Their tentative friendship turns into romance, but Luka soon comes to realize Nick’s fear of losing his bad boy reputation means he’ll probably never go public with their relationship.

Nick never needed anyone until Luka came into his life. Now he has to reconcile his carefree past with the future he suddenly wants more than anything. And the first lesson he must learn is how to become the man both he and Luka need him to be, rather than stay the boy he always was. Alone.

Review: The Luckiest is the sequel to Moonlight Becomes You, and I would highly recommend you read that first before reading The Luckiest.

When I read Moonlight Becomes You, Nick wasn’t one of my favorite characters. To sum him up in one word: ass. I was really curious how the authors were going to vindicate his asshole personality. Well, I’m happy to say they did, and they did it well. The story opens up with a life changing event for Nick. He’s sent to rehab to clean up his act, or else. In true Nick fashion, he’s combative all the way. Yup, he’s still an ass.

I really liked how the authors portrayed Nick. He wasn’t a quick fix, he still kept up his nasty attitude and rock star mentality of “I’m Nick Ventura, rock god, everybody loves me.” His journey of self-discovery was hard to read sometimes, as he kept reverting back to his old ways of thinking and whining about almost everything. He made me want to punch his lights out on several occasions. But, mistakes are meant to be made in life, you just have to learn from them. In the beginning, Nick was far from accepting his fate, but I hoped he’d come around.

And then there’s Luka. He’s a nutritional counselor at the rehab center and has his own issues he’s dealing with, one being that he’s looking for “Mr. Right” after dealing with a cheating ex. He’s got the great support of his best friend, Jeana, and his mom, two of the most delightful characters I’ve read in a long time. They were both a big part of this story even though their presence on page was minimal. Luka is an all around good guy who knows what he wants in life and in love. He’s not going to accept any less. He’s perfect for Nick.

It was nice to see Nick in all his glory, making mistake after mistake. I say that because some characters we read make a total personality change at the drop of a hat, with no explanation. That’s not how real life works, folks. The realistic spin the authors put on Nick was spot on. As he continually made mistakes, he learned from them. Instead of being who he truly wanted to be, he was playing a part he thought his fans and friends expected of him. He had to do a lot of soul searching to figure out who he truly was. At times I thought Luka was too nice for Nick, but in the end they balanced each other out and made it work. It was nice to see Nick finally meet someone that he really loved. It made him open his eyes to what was important in life, and it also helped him get over his anger towards his brother’s relationship with Jesse.

Overall, I’m happy the authors decided to give Nick his own story. I felt he was misunderstood in Moonlight Becomes You. I knew there was more to him, all we had to do was peel away those layers to see him shine.

Definitely recommend this to everyone.

You can buy The Luckiest here: