The Lucky One
Nicholas Sparks, 2008
A Marine finds a photograph in the sand and sets out to find the woman in it, hoping the luck it brought him might lead somewhere real. A warm, plain-spoken romance that moves steadily through longing and hope toward a feeling of freedom.
Feels like longing and hope. About love and freedom.
Who it’s for
You may like it if you enjoy contemporary romance built around longing, hope, and a chance encounter that turns into something more. The storytelling is earnest and plain-spoken, so if you prefer irony or emotional distance in your romance, its heartfelt tone may feel too sweet.
Why read it
It gives you an earnest, plain-spoken story about luck, connection, and the wish not to live alone.
A page from the book
When you stop hearing from someone, what story do you tell yourself?
Every now and then, I’d meet a guy and think that we were getting along great, and suddenly I’d stop hearing from him. Not only did he stop calling, but if I happened to bump into him sometime later he always acted like I had the plague. I didn’t understand it. I still don’t. And it bothered me. It hurt me. With time, it got harder and harder to keep blaming the guys, and I eventually came to the conclusion that there was something wrong with me. That maybe I was simply meant to live my life alone. Nicholas Sparks.Sparks was working as a pharmaceutical salesman when he wrote The Notebook; its 1996 success let him write full-time.
Books that feel like this
More by Nicholas Sparks
The Notebook
Nicholas Sparks, 1996
An old man's devotion to the woman he loves, told in plain, unguarded prose for anyone who has ever measured a life by whom they loved.
Dear John
Nicholas Sparks, 2006
One summer, a soldier and a college student fall in love; the years apart ask whether love can survive distance and duty.
The Rescue
Nicholas Sparks, 2000
A single mother and a volunteer firefighter fall in love while a secret from his past tests the trust they are building.
Where to get it
Some of these links earn us a small commission, at no cost to you. It keeps BookFeed free.
Questions readers ask
- Is The Lucky One for me?
- You may like it if you enjoy contemporary romance built around longing, hope, and a chance encounter that turns into something more. The storytelling is earnest and plain-spoken, so if you prefer irony or emotional distance in your romance, its heartfelt tone may feel too sweet.
- What is The Lucky One like?
- A warm, plain-spoken romance that moves steadily through longing and hope toward a feeling of freedom. Feels like longing and hope. About love and freedom.
- What should I read after The Lucky One?
- If you liked The Lucky One, try The Sun Is Also a Star (Nicola Yoon), Heart Bones (Colleen Hoover) and If He Had Been With Me (Laura Nowlin).
A taste of the feed
A word for the feeling that someone is already your future.
There’s a Japanese phrase that I like: koi no yokan. It doesn’t mean love at first sight. It’s closer to love at second sight. It’s the feeling when you meet someone that you’re going to fall in love with them. Maybe you don’t love them right away, but it’s inevitable that you will.
The Sun Is Also a Star · Nicola Yoon
The theory that damage shapes us more than kindness ever could.
Sometimes I believe personalities are shaped more by damage than kindness. Kindness doesn’t sink as deep into your skin as the damage does. The damage stains your soul so bad, you can’t scrub it off. It stays there forever, and I feel like people can see all my damage just by looking at me.
Heart Bones · Colleen Hoover
Loving someone so long it stops being a feeling and becomes a body part.
I’ve loved him my whole life, and somewhere along the way, that love didn’t change but grew. It grew to fill the parts of me that I did not have when I was a child. It grew with every new longing of my body and desire until there was not a piece of me that did not love him. And when I look at him, there is no other feeling in me.
If He Had Been With Me · Laura Nowlin
Read pages from books like this, one at a time
Keep reading in the feed