Rachael Lippincott, author of Five Feet Apart and All This Time, released her third novel, The Lucky List, on June 2, 2021.
The novel follows protagonist Emily, heading into the summer before her senior year of high school, a few years after her mom’s death. Her dad’s high school friend is moving back to their town with his daughter, Blake. Emily and Blake eventually find Emily’s mom’s bucket list for the summer before her senior year and decide to check off all 12 items on the list.
While they check items off the list, Emily becomes more self-confident and begins to discover her true identity.
Lippincott has shown growth in the diversity of her characters, an aspect that is strong in this book. Despite her characters not having many unique backgrounds in her first and second novels, she gave each character their own backgrounds, traits, and quirks in The Lucky List.
Not only does each main character have a unique backstory, the side characters all uniquely contribute to the storyline and character development. Through rich character development, Lippincott explores themes of identity, courage, and healing from a loss.
The Lucky List is Lippincott’s first solo novel. Her first novels were both co-written with Mikki Daughtry, and Five Feet Apart was also written with Tobias Iaconis.
The novel is sold locally at Barnes & Noble and Target, and online at Amazon.com.
During pre order campaigns, Lippincott placed a heavy importance on purchasing books from indie bookstores. Indie bookstores give authors a larger percent of the profits from the book, and although they cost more, create jobs and boost the local economy.
In order to entice readers to purchase the novel from an Indie bookseller, Lippincott partnered with White Whale Bookstore in her hometown of Pennsylvania. Together, the two promised signed books, stickers designed by Lippincott’s wife, and a chance to win one of 30 tote bags inspired by the book by pre-ordering from the store.