What readers think of Lucky Strike, plus links to write your own review.

It is not often that one finds a book so subtle, compelling and smart as Lucky Strike and its story line is as touching as it is ironic. This book will make you think about the destructive power of the atomic bomb while also making you feel, along with its quirky and all-too-human cast of characters, the even more firey force of hope and love. Lucky Strike readers will feel transported to another time and place where women named Miss Dazzle serve booze all day to card playing old ladies, and, best of all, they'll laugh all the way through.

A quick look at Zafris' last two books -- Metal Shredders and Lucky Strike -- might cause you to think she is a metallurgist. Instead, she is a first class writer whose characters are lonely and faded but cheerfully hopeful of finding the jackpot or the "lucky strike" in very unusual ways that seem perfectly normal under Zafris' gentle hand. She is tolerant and nonjudgmental about her strange characters and the life choices they make. The Utah wilderness and radioactivity loom dangerously in the background of this story of bad choices, cautionary friendships, and eventually bravery and compassion.

The novel Lucky Strike by Nancy Zafris is gentle, funny, sometimes strange and always thought-provoking. The 50's Utah desert setting is full of both magic and danger.

A Mormon uranium prospector (Harry), a bristly widow from Ohio (Jean), her two kids (Beth and Charlie) and their new friend (Jo) meet in the Utah desert where they are searching for uranium. Each hopes to stake a claim and make it rich.

Charlie's illness and pluck, Jo's abusive husband, Beth's little-girl perceptions, Harry's fuzzy-headed romanticsim and Jean's conflicted desire make this book rich with feeling.

An undercurrent of irony runs through Lucky Strike as well. We know the dangers of uranium; these characters do not. The tension this produces is unsettling and riveting.