The Lucky Winners by K. L. Slater review – You’ll never enter an Omaze prize draw again…
Too much of a slow burn?
The Lucky Winners by K. L. Slater: The key details
- Publish date: 14 August 2025
- Genre: Thriller
- Publisher: Penguin Michael Joseph
- Series/standalone: Standalone
- Length: 400 pages
Blurb: “When Merri and Dev buy a ticket on the last day of a national draw to win the house of their dreams, they never, in a million years, expect to win. Less than a week later, they’re receiving the keys to their new Lake District mansion.
For Dev, it’s a dream come true – no more stressful rent negotiations, or waiting for the landlord to finally fix the damp. Of course he’s delighted to be interviewed about their good luck.
But Merri feels a little uneasy. Dev doesn’t realise there’s a reason she’s never wanted to put down roots, always trying to run away from the memories of what happened the day her little sister died.
At first it’s easy to think she’s imagining the shadowy figures in the lakefront garden. It’s silly to think that someone is watching her through the gorgeous floor-to-ceiling glass windows.
And then a body is found in the lake. And Merri’s new perfect life is about to come crashing down…”
The Lucky Winners by K. L. Slater – The review
I’ve read a dozen of Slater’s books and while some hit the spot better than others, I always enjoy them. The Lucky Winners is no different, but it’s one of her weaker releases. While the story is sound, it’s too much of a slow burn, with too many crucial plot points being dangled like a carrot on a string for far too long.
The Lucky Winners is the story of Merri and Dev, a young married couple struggling to get by and currently living in a small flat in Nottingham. For their anniversary, Dev spends £20 on an Omaze-style house draw – at which Merri goes mad. They don’t have money to waste.
Except… they win. Overnight, they go from down and out renters to millionaires who own a huge, fancy house in the Lake District. It’s a dream come true. Right? Right…?
From the off, Slater makes it very clear that Merri has a secret. She keeps it from her best friend, from her husband, and from us, the reader. It’s a secret that’s teased, regularly, but it’s not until the very end that all will be revealed.
The tension building here is rather ham-fisted throughout, and more time is spent on laying cliffhangers and questions than actually making characters three-dimensional. By the end of the book I felt like I didn’t really know Merri beyond the surface level basics. It meant that when the big reveals and the twists all hit, I didn’t care as much as I should have.
Still, Slater does a good job of creating a feeling of unease. Merri and Dev’s lucky win is put into question almost immediately with a broken window, local residents who make them feel less than welcome and neighbours who make have secrets of their own to hide.
It’s an easy read, and I was pushed through to the end with the desire to uncover Merri’s secrets, along with everything else teased throughout the narrative. But at the same time I quickly grew tired of the endless teases. The blurb of the book mentions a body being found in the lake, but in reality that doesn’t happen until more than halfway through. That should give you an idea of just how slow-moving The Lucky Winners can be at times.
There are some great sections that focus Merri as a teenager, giving us an insight into her life along with whatever her big hidden secret may be. Unfortunately I found them to be too far and few between to be as impactful as they should have been.
If you don’t mind a slow burn, there’s a lot to like in The Lucky Winners. For me, though, Slater has much better novels and I’ll look forward to the next one. Still, I’ll think twice before I ever buy an Omaze ticket 🤭
With thank to Netgalley and Penguin Michael Joseph for providing a digital copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.
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