Lucky Day by Chuck Tingle | Horror Fiction Review

I love Chuck Tingle's work but this one wasn't my favorite.

My 2 Cents for Free!


Lucky Day by Chuck Tingle

Released August 2025
Source: Purchased
See more @ Goodreads

I’ve read all of Tingle’s horror novels and each and every one is a little weird, but this one definitely wins the prize for most imaginative and outrageously strange turns. It’s deeper than many books I typically read and in all honestly wasn’t my favorite of his work. I realize it’s delving into matters of identity and existence and nihilism and bi-erasure but there was so much zaniness going on at points and a few changes in tone that were disorienting to me as I was reading. It almost felt like an X-Files episode with some insane trauma, an unsupportive mother and something called the Low Propensity Event that must be investigated tossed in. It was all a little too chaotic to keep my focus at times but maybe it’s just me.

Lucky Day starts out introducing Vera who is about to celebrate her first book release and is considering and extremely worried about coming out to her mother. The celebration is ruined and the Low Propensity Event happens and causes major chaos, death and destruction. Fast forward four years and Vera has survived but has been suffering from deep depression. She’s living on a diet of Ramen and nihilism when she’s dragged from bed after a government agent knocks on her door and demands she help him investigate the Low Propensity Event because she’s brilliant and was once obsessed with statistics.

This is when it sort of turns into an X-Files episode except instead of Mulder we get Agent Layne who seems to be a good enough guy. At first. And that’s all I’m saying about any of that. He does force her to start getting involved in life again so props for that. They travel to a casino in Las Vegas to check out some fishy casino owner, and this is the part where my attention started to wane in and out.

There are some fun concepts here. Tingle uses “plot holes” in a unique way and the ending, after not feeling too much at all for any character in this book, really hit me in the feelings so I’m 100% glad I stuck it out until the very end. But it is a very chaotic book so prepare for that before jumping in.

Final Rating: ⭐⭐⭐


Publisher Plot Synopsis 

Lucky Day is the newest novel of terror from Chuck Tingle, USA Today bestselling author of Bury Your Gays, where one woman must go up against the most horrifying concept of all: nothing.

Vera is a survivor of a global catastrophe known as the Low Probability Event, but she definitely isn't thriving. Once a passionate professor of statistics, she no longer finds meaning in anything at all.

But when problematic government agent Layne knocks on her door, she's the only one who can help him uncover the connection between deadly spates of absurdity and an improbably lucky casino. What's happening in Vegas isn't staying there, and the world is at risk of another disaster.

When it comes to Chuck Tingle, the only thing more terrifying than a serious horror novel is an absurd one...

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