Gina Rae Mitchell

The Bad Luck Nickel by Matthew Leslie​ ~ #BookReview #AuthorGuestPost #YAfiction #Canada #HighSchool #RockBand #ComingOfAge @iReadBookTours @mmmlele @matthew84695687

A book blog tour from iRead Book Tours.

Thank you to the author, publisher, & Lauren at iRead for providing me with the information for this tour.

Quick Summary

The Bad Luck Nickel by Matthew Leslie is a great fit for readers who crave a thrilling and emotional ride as it probes the complexities of fame, friendship, and self-discovery, making it a must-read for fans of coming-of-age stories and music-infused drama.

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Book Details

The Bad Luck Nickel by Matthew Leslie
Published by Ausable Books on August 11, 2024
Genres: Fiction, Friendship, Young Adult
Format: eBook, Paperback
Pages: 370

When Blair Matthews, teen celeb and son of rock legend, The Blade, shows up at a high school in Montreal amidst rumors of a drug-fueled sex scandal, it’s the most excitement the students at Trudeau High have seen in years.

And when Marco and his twin sister Julianna become fast friends with Blair, it seems like a dream. For Marco, Blair lifts him out of his post-breakup funk, and joins his band, The Bad Luck Nickel, instantly making it one of the hottest groups in town. And for Jules, Blair is her celebrity crush come to life in her living room.

But can Blair leave his past behind and start fresh at Trudeau High? Or will his infamy follow him from LA to MTL?

Source: iRead Book Tours, Kindle Unlimited

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Purchase Links for The Bad Luck Nickel

If the above link does not route you to your country’s Amazon page for The Bad Luck Nickel, please let me know, and I’ll gladly get you a link.

Using my link does not change the price you pay. Amazon pays me a minimal amount out of their share. Every penny helps to support this blog.

Purchase The Bad Luck Nickel online from your local bookstore.

Also available at BN.    

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My thoughts on The Bad Luck Nickel

The Bad Luck Nickel by Matthew Leslie is a high school drama that mixes rock-star energy with the highs and lows of teenage friendship and fame.

When Blair Matthews, teen celebrity and son of a rock legend, arrives at Montreal’s Trudeau High, he brings a buzz of excitement and mystery that quickly draws in siblings Marco and Julianna. For Marco, Blair’s friendship offers a fresh start and a chance to revive his band, The Bad Luck Nickel, turning it into the hottest act in town. For Julianna, Blair is a dream come true—her celebrity crush is now part of her daily life.

Leslie captures the excitement and challenges of high school life with a mix of authenticity and fun, exploring whether Blair can truly shake off his wild past or if his reputation will follow him. This story is ideal for readers who love coming-of-age tales with a blend of romance, music, and the intrigue of second chances.

This tale should appeal to a wide variety of readers, regardless of age, because who didn’t want to be in a rock band in High School?

I received a copy of the book for the tour. This review is my honest, unbiased opinion.

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I love to read books through my  Amazon Kindle Unlimited subscription. 

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Guest Post

I TRY TO AVOID CLICHES, BUT MY WRITING MANTRA IS ALL ABOUT ADDING FUEL TO THE FIRE

For decades now (yikes, dating myself right from the get-go), creative writing teachers all the
way from high school to grad school always said the same thing: “Write what you know.”
And as a young writer trying to find my voice, that pretty much sounded like the worst
advice on earth, especially when I wanted to write about things that didn’t even exist, people
and places that had to be imagined up first to be known. And furthermore, how the heck
could I write what I know, when I (let’s be honest here) didn’t really know that much to
begin with?

But as I got a bit older, and lived through a thang or two, I began to see my experiences
reflected back at me in my writing as if through a distorted mirror – perspectives shifted,
voices pitched, memories filtered through time and fiction – and that’s when the stories
always seemed to really take off.

In my early drafts of The Bad Luck Nickel, I had my crew of Jules and Marco and Tank and
Randy, hanging out in the tunnels of the Montreal subway system, racing on the tracks in
between trains. I had what I thought was a great setting, and my twin first person narrators,
and a plan for something really bad to happen, but I felt something was lacking.

I do a lot of brainstorming while exercising, or commuting, or insomnia-ing in the middle of
the night, and when a great idea comes it is literally like an electric shock through my system,
and one that is usually fairly emotional, because the creative flood gates open, and suddenly
whole new ideas fill in the gaps I didn’t even know were there, and nine times out of ten, this
sudden creative flash is the addition of something personal. And then it just seems so damn
obvious.

I can remember being in my apartment in Montreal, awake an hour or so before my alarm,
thinking about Marco and Jules, when the flash hit me. Put the guys in a band. I’d been in
bands in high school and college and consider music and writing my two main obsessions in
life! And then, almost instantly there was a rapid-fire montage of images, basement jam
sessions, my fingers sliding on the frets of my old bass guitar, crazy live shows where we
played way too sloppy and fast (and probably too stoned), and a super cool yet total prick
front man from a hot local band, and boom Blair Matthews was born.

I’ve started working on a new project, an historical supernatural fiction story about a real life
seventh son of a seventh son who reportedly had healing powers, and again the story was
flowing, but something felt amiss. And just recently, I had another one of those laser shocks,
during a family dinner at my cousin’s new home in Delaware (of all random places). The
MLB playoffs were on in the background and I was hit with a whole new slant to the tale,
one I didn’t know it needed and one connected with my own family history and baseball.

And again, the jolt was powerful, and emotional, and exciting, because it gave me a huge
creative spark to take the story somewhere closer, personal, and into a world that makes
more sense to me, because it is something I know. So now I just use the cliché and run with
it, because it makes writing fun as hell.

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Giveaway!

Author-signed copy of THE BAD LUCK NICKEL (one winner) (USA and Canada) (ends Nov 22)

Please visit more stops on the tour for extra chances to win!

Official Tour Page for The Bad Luck Nickel

Blog Tour Schedule:

Oct 29 – Kim’s Book Reviews and Writing Aha’s – book review / giveaway
Nov 1 – Locks, Hook and Books– book review / giveaway
Nov 4 – Liese’s Blog– book spotlight
Nov 5 – China Sorrows– book review
Nov 8 – Books for Books– book spotlight
Nov 11 – Gina Rae Mitchell – book review / guest post / giveaway
Nov 13 – Book Corner News and Reviews – book review / giveaway
Nov 14 – Ilovebooksandstuffblog – book spotlight / giveaway
Nov 15 – Sky_loves_books – book review / giveaway

Click HERE for the Instagram Tour Schedule.

The Bad Luck Nickel by Matthew Leslie Book Tour Giveaway

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​Book Title: The Bad Luck Nickel by Matthew Leslie
Category: YA Fiction (Ages 13-17), 370 pages
Genre: YA Fiction
Publisher: Ausable Books
Release date: August 11, 2024
Tour dates: Oct 21 to Nov 15, 2024
Content Rating: PG: The book is a YA novel that touches on mature themes. There are profanities in the dialogue, and the story touches on themes of addiction, drug abuse, mental health, sexuality, and underage drinking, but there are no descriptive sex scenes, and while there is some mild violence, there are no guns.

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“Be the change that you wish to see in the world.”
― Mahatma Gandhi

“If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything.”
― Mark Twain

“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
― Maya Angelou

“Friendship … is born at the moment when one man says to another “What! You too? I thought that no one but myself . . .”
― C.S. Lewis