Deborah Coonts, a UNC alumna, had her book “Lucky Bastard” published recently. The book is the fourth in the book series “A Lucky O’Toole Las Vegas Adventure,” which follows the story of fictional Lucky O’Toole. In the fourth book, Lucky tries to solve a murder of a co-worker.
Coonts is having a book signing at Flyleaf books this weekend, and staff writer McKenzie Coey spoke to Coonts about the Lucky’s character and the challenges of writing a novel.
DAILY TAR HEEL: Can you tell me a little bit about what readers should expect and look forward to in “Lucky Bastard?”
Deborah Coonts: It’s meant to make you laugh. It is light. It is all about the magic of Vegas and the mischief that people get into there. It is very character driven, I like relationships, not necessarily male-female relationships, but all kinds of personal relationships.
So I have those things that I love to explore and play with in the books as well. The book would make a great beach read — it is the perfect time to pick one up and laugh and be silly.
DTH: Did you face any challenges in the writing process? Did you experience anything different while writing this book specifically?
DC: Writing is a challenge. This book especially for me was difficult because now when you publish, or lucky enough to get published, you spend a lot of time as an author marketing and promoting your book. So you get pulled out of the story quite often. You don’t have those long amounts of time to sit there and work on the story, so it is much more difficult. You come and go out of that world.
I am trying to balance the emotional aspects of being a writer with the actual process of writing the books. You are your own industry – you create the product, market the product, and go out and promote it and sell it. It is a time balancing act more than anything. The stories themselves are fun and I know what’s going to happen three books from now. So I don’t really have trouble with the storytelling.
DTH: Do you have an amount of books in mind that you want to write about Lucky?
DC: Not specifically, I think I will write until I know that I have especially Lucky’s character arch completed and I know that I have her where she needs to be. If people want to keep reading the stories I have a plan in mind on what to do at that point, but I don’t know where that point is exactly.
DTH: How did you come up with the Lucky character? Was there a specific inspiration for the plot of this novel?
DC: That’s one of the things about this novel that was a lot of fun. I usually try to center a novel around a big event that occurs regularly in Las Vegas. This book was actually set around an event like the World Series Poker final table event.
I think watching people play poker is like watching grass grow. It is just so boring, but the people that inhabit that world are fascinating. I met a young man who lived in Texas. He is in his early 30s and he is just fabulous and he’s deaf, yet he is a professional poker player. I got really intrigued how his complete hearing loss affected his ability to function, not only in Vegas, but also the poker world. I followed him around and watched him play poker several times. That became a big part of the plot, and in fact the character that I patterned based on what I learned from him is actually instrumental in helping Lucky solve the murders in the book.
DTH: Do people have to read the other books in the series to understand this one? Or can they pick it up and read it whenever?
DC: Each book is written as a stand alone, so you can pick it up and read it anywhere. You can pick up the fourth one and I get you up to speed pretty quickly. I think readers that have started at the beginning like to see how Lucky has grown as a character from the start and how the relationships in her life have changed and what she has learned. But that doesn’t take away from somebody’s ability to enjoy each story on its own in whatever order they pick it up.
DTH: What age demographic is the book targeted to?
DC: It is funny I thought I was writing books targeted at women, but I get more emails from men that love the books because it’s just Vegas. And Vegas is really a man’s town, or it was in its inception because it was geared toward the entertainment for men and has expanded much beyond that now.
I would say anywhere from early in their 30s on up is my general demographic, but it is read by all ages, from college age on up. It seems to me kids in their 20s are reading things that are a little bit more Hunger Game-ish and that genre. This is sort of real world, adult stuff, so when you cross into that as a person you become interested in those things, so I think my books resonate more then.
DTH: Where can readers buy the book?
DC: You can buy it anywhere at any bookstore – independent, Barnes & Noble. So the books are available online, every format you can think of, from audio mp3, CD, digital, and all formats.
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