Just My Luck - Midwest Book Reviews

Just My Luck portrays Tina Brooks and her mother Antoinette, who have each been victims of circumstances, life events and just all-over bad luck.

As a young girl, Antionette (Twanie) became a victim of abuse, which led to single motherhood and the end of many dreams. Is daughter Tina destined to follow in her footsteps when Antoinette vanishes and leaves her thirteen-year-old daughter to fend for herself?

Thankfully, strangers come to the young girl’s rescue. But later, as Tina navigates her changed world, she is faced with a co-worker's murder and secrets that affect her future, she finds that more than luck is involved in affecting the course of her life and her choices.

Sisters and authors Lelia Coles and Rosilyn Seay create a realistic, powerful account of women under siege in many ways; from both within and their own experiences and choices, and in the environments they move through.

As murder and intrigue threaten Tina's motel job and her personal well-being, readers are drawn into a story that operates as both a murder mystery and a social commentary piece: "Just like that, everything changed. We all agreed that the person who committed the awful crime was a threat to all of us, mostly me. The man from the bathroom had seen my face and he knew exactly where to start looking for me, even if I couldn’t remember what he looked like."

Tina's versatility, survival instinct, and ability to absorb many changes in her situation create a powerful protagonist who does more than just survive adversity. She tackles it head-on with full knowledge that her heritage and its influences are affecting her future wellbeing and ability to move beyond her mother's world.

Readers will find this story compelling not just in how Tina and her group of friends tackles problems, but how she grows relationships, solves problems, and comprehends new situations that come with challenges—and opportunities—connected to the past.

Lelia Coles and Rosilyn Seay create a compelling story of a spunky, savvy young woman's coming of age. Her problems, solutions, and discoveries come with a charge to "go find herself." How Tina does so goes beyond expectations in a gripping story that fully embraces love, death, and a life that evolves to reach past adversity to new possibilities.

The portrait of this process will especially appeal to readers of women's contemporary fiction, urban fiction, and African American literature. But any reader will find, in Tina and her mother, role models for perseverance and flexibility.