The following version of the book was used to create this study guide: Stapley, Marissa. Lucky. Simon and Schuster Canada, Toronto, Ontario, 2021. Kindle AZW file.

Valerie Mann becomes pregnant as a teenager. Overwhelmed and without any support from her family, Valerie leaves the baby girl on the steps of a church where novice Margaret Jean is on duty alone for the first time. Margaret Jean is a con artist who is hiding from her past. Margaret Jean hopes someone else will deal with the problem. Eventually, she goes to the door. Just then, John Armstrong happens to pass by. He later says he feel in love with the baby the first moment he saw her. He convinces Margaret Jean that his wife, suffering from depression, had left the baby. Glad she does not have to deal with the situation, Margaret Jean lets John leave with the baby and gives John her gold cross necklace. A few days later, Valerie realizes she cannot be happy without her baby and returns to the church. Margaret Jean does not reveal the baby's fate, but she does use money from the cons she worked before joining the church to help Valerie. She pays for an apartment, school, and even law school, launching Valerie on the way to becoming a Manhattan District Attorney. They continue to have lunch monthly over the years, and Valerie never gives up the hope of finding her daughter.

John is a consummate conman who raises the baby – named Luciana but nicknamed Lucky – as his daughter. He claims Lucky's mother left when she was a baby. They travel constantly, working cons wherever they are. As Lucky ages, she begins to feel the strain of the cons. At age 10, she makes a connection with a girl her age for the first time ever. The girl, Steph, recently lost her father. Her mother Darla has plenty of money but is terribly lonely. Though Lucky simply wants to be friends with this girl, John sees an opportunity. He tells Darla that Lucky (who is posing as Andi) is sick and will die without the proper medical care. Darla willingly hands over money for the treatments. Months later, Lucky is feeling the strain of the constant moves and cons. John travels to Darla's house, correctly predicting he can tell a story that will prompt Darla to welcome them. They claim that Lucky (posing again as Andi) is completely healthy. Lucky pleads with John for one year in this stable home. He agrees, but Steph begins to make plans for their future as a family, prompting Lucky to decide they should keep moving.

When Lucky is 17-years-old, she and John settle down to live on a houseboat in California. John meets Priscilla, another adept con artist, and winds up arrested. Lucky falls in love with a boy she knows as Alex, learning later that he is actually Priscilla's son Cory. With John and Priscilla arrested, Cory and Lucky begin to make a life together. Cory establishes friendships with a lot of wealthy young students and works a con to get investments to open a club, all while preparing to run away the moment Lucky has a degree. They end up in Boise, Idaho, where Lucky works as an accountant until she and Cory drain the accounts of all her clients. Once again, they are on the run.

They plan to spend one last night in Las Vegas before fleeing the country, but Cory disappears. Lucky buys a lottery ticket that turns out to be a jackpot winner. However, she cannot cash it because she is a wanted fugitive. Over the next weeks, she discovers Cory had been stealing money he was supposed to be laundering and that John is not her father. She also realizes there are some people who can be trusted. She reunites with Valerie through a series of lucky chances. Valerie, as a district attorney, sets the stage for Lucky to get the jackpot which she will use to pay restitution to the people she bilked and to avoid prison by testifying against Priscilla and Cory, who have ties to organized crime.