In Too Lucky to Live, Annie Hogsett’s charming debut, Allie, a divorced Cleveland woman, is in need of love and a bit of extra cash when she meets Tom, a sexy blind man who happens to possess a winning lottery ticket. Tom never expected to win. He bought the ticket as a lesson in futility for a local kid, with whom he agreed to share any winnings. Now seemingly every criminal in Cleveland is after that ticket. Allie and Tom have to dodge danger after danger as they quickly start to fall for each other.
The book earned a starred review from Library Journal and was widely praised for it’s humor, fast pace, and original premise. Next up on your reading list, the sequel, Murder to the Metal, in which Allie and Tom shack up and start their own detective agency.
I first reached out to Hogsett years ago when I was unpublished and frustrated after dozens of agent rejections on an old manuscript. She generously donated her time and advice and sent me along her winning submission for Too Lucky to Live, which was enormously helpful. Hogsett also recommended Janet Reid’s wonderful blog Query Shark, in which the veteran literary agent analyzes real queries and explains how they could be improved.
Hogsett agreed to share here query for Too Lucky to Live (originally titled Somebody’s Bound to Wind Up Dead):
Allie Harper’s romance-starved, cash-deprived day-to-day is about to take a turn for the
deadly. The sassy, part-time librarian believes all her problems would be solved if she
could find:
1) a nice, smart, hot guy and
2) enough money to get her car fixed.
Bingo. Er … Lotto! Allie hits the jackpot of love and danger when she rescues Tom
Bennington—handsome, hot, blind, Ph.D. in English literature—from a noisy crosswalk.
The lottery ticket in Tom’s grocery bag is the MondoMillions winner, and Tom? He’s the
one man among millions who’s played for the sole purpose of not winning. Now every
evil, scheming weasel in the City of Cleveland is after Allie, Tom, and his unwelcome
$550-million windfall.
SOMEBODY’S BOUND TO WIND UP DEAD is an amateur sleuth/caper. 80,000 words
about money, money, money, murder, murder, murder, murder, murder, murder,
murder, attempted kidnapping, actual kidnapping, and hot sex—to about the 10th
power. And love. Love is definitely in there, too.
It’s also about cell phones and ringtones, a case of Joni Mitchell, and a couple of big
bottles of Jo Malone cologne. About sighted people who are blind and a blind guy who
sees a lot of stuff very clearly—and can read a person’s body like Braille. There’s Rock
& Roll, of course, plus a whole lot that’s lucky, and a lot that’s so not.
I used my M.A. in English Lit to get myself a copywriting job in a large Cleveland
advertising agency and spent 15 years writing, revising, presenting, collaborating, and
having an indecent amount of fun. The copywriter’s skill of listening for the reader—the
impatient, “grab-me-or-I’m-outta here” reader—works hard for me now that I’m targeting
a different—but not all that different—demographic. And I certainly learned to make
revisions with a minimum of jaw clenching.
SOMEBODY’S BOUND TO WIND UP DEAD is first in the T&A Detectives Series, with
Book Two well underway and three more in tasty bits and pieces.
I am grateful for your time.
Annie Hogsett
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