We've all read stories about the curse of the lottery winner and Dick Elder’s Lucky Numbers takes a humorous look at this strange phenomenon. In 2005 Ed and Sandy Noble, along with their twin girls Beverly and Patricia find out just how quickly five numbers can change your life. Unlike your typical lottery winners, Ed’s family is your typical middle class family living in a carbon copy subdivision in Arizona. But with $88 million in the bank, things start to change. Ed tries to do the right thing and not blow the money by hiring a team of experts to assist him, but all too soon the allure of beach homes in Malibu, boats, country clubs and exotic vacations becomes too much to resist. Will the Nobles become just another sordid tale of lottery winners or will they beat the odds a second time and become the exception to the rule?

Where Lucky Numbers truly excels is in the way it isn’t a woe-is-me tale of shopping sprees and a lavish lifestyle. The Nobles are grounded in reality for the most part, but Dick Elder does a fantastic job of showing just how irresistible suddenly having millions of dollars in disposable income can be even to the most staid person. Sandy Noble, for example, is now a woman of leisure and - unaccustomed to so much free times - takes to daytime drinking with a handsome man. After a few missteps by Pat and Bev, the family begins to take stock of how the money has impacted on them. Personally, I feel they went a little too far in the opposite direction, but hey, you do what you have to in order to keep your family well balanced and whole.

Ed and Sandy thought all their troubles were over when those five numbers on the raffle ticket matched the ones in the magazine, but it turns out their problems were actually only just beginning. Being multi-millionaires isn’t as easy as it seems, even when you have a foolproof plan for how to avoid falling into the normal pitfalls. After all, Ed and Sandy have two teenage daughters who can easily get into trouble as well, and being the children of millionaires isn’t easy when your friends (and those who aren’t your friends) know you have a lot of money. Lucky Numbers by Dick Elder definitely shows that those five 'lucky' numbers can be anything but.

Winning a lot of money could mean different things to different people. But for this family, it means helping out others and still living an amazing life they never dreamed of. Unfortunately, they do find out that money can breed problems and they end up with more than a few troubles of their own. It’s very easy to relate to Ed and Sandy, and even Bev and Patty, and definitely easy to get sucked into everything that’s happening to them. It’s not easy living the high life after all, no matter what others may think. I couldn’t wait to keep reading more and more, and even still I would like to know more about this interesting family and the crazy things that they experience in their lives. It’s only been a short time since they won the money, but much has happened since those Lucky Numbers showed up.