If you’re a fan of coming-of-age tales and family drama with a proper amount of teenage love and dream following, this is a book for you. The engaging, emotional story will keep you turning pages long after you should have been moving on to other tasks.

About the Book

It’s 1976 and with dreams of a career in rock, a crush on the prettiest girl in town, and a mother in remission from cancer, Mike’s future looks bright.

Music brings excitement and a chance to shine, but life off-stage is complicated.

Together with family, friends, and band-mates, Mike finds joy, sadness and loss. Troubling secrets surface while a new friend brings both fresh perspectives and a cruel reality. The radios and pubs blast rock into the suburban nights and the band prepare for their big break. Is Mike ready?

A warm, thoughtful, questioning novel; a reminder of simpler days, complicated emotions, and music of a generation.

On the surface, this book reads like a YA novel. But it contains mature themes and deep insight that will probably go over the heads of all but the most mature teens. And that’s okay. I wouldn’t wish for the kind of life experience that would make it understandable to my worst enemy. A lovely, stable childhood is much better. Unfortunately, it doesn’t make for interesting storytelling.

Historical fiction isn’t my favorite, but sometimes I find a winner. This one hit the sweet spot. Set against the 1970s music scene, this tale of love and loss ripped my heart out and healed it right back up alongside the chosen family cast of characters supporting the MC in his journey to grow up.

This blend of coming-of-age drama, musical rise-to-fame, family drama/thriller, family dysfunction, and passionate teen relationships made it a fabulous book. I had others I needed to read, but I couldn’t put this one down, finishing it more than a week early. These days, that’s rare, and a high compliment to the author.

JB/Mike is a delightful character, a typical teen boy, but loyal, caring, and sweet beyond his years. Most of the kids were forced to grow up too early and it added to the depth of each one in different ways. I liked Petra and was rooted for their relationship. The relationship between the various friends and between siblings was also so well done and so intricately attacked. I’m always here for relationships, which probably kept me turning pages well into the night.

I’m so thankful for the author and Love Books Tours for including me and I can’t wait to read more by this author! I’m hoping to see more of this story, but either way I’m a fan!

Who’s It For?

This is categorized as upmarket fiction. This is a new one I’ve been hearing lately, which is a mix of commercial and literary fiction. This one has a feel of literary/book club fiction masquerading as young adult fiction. It packs a big emotional punch in a dreamy, coming-of-age tale of days of old like “The Catcher in the Rye,” and “My Girl.”

Content Warnings: Parent Death, Violence, Religious Ideology, Infidelity, SA, SI, Teen Sex, Pregnancy, Abortion, Homophobia, Cancer, Death, Medical Trauma

I can’t recall the exact instance. However, I’m a caregiver for my dad who has dementia and my daughter who is autistic and has ADHD (we’ve since learned myself and her father both are also). So… They say and do some wild and fun things sometimes, leaving me speechless at least once a week it seems like – not necessarily in a bad way if that’s what you’re thinking. Though, it’s also possible – likely even – that my husband the pun master left me speechless with one of his ridiculous jokes.
I do not, but it was probably a Disney movie. We were a movie family!! We had a discount theater that would show movies for cheap after they left the regular theater but before VHS – back when it took so long to come out. We took well advantage of that!!
I am admittedly a bit of a people pleaser. I definitely learned this behavior from my mom. I am also on the spectrum and it’s a common desire among female presenting individuals on the spectrum to become people pleasers as they learn to mask and try to fit into the society around them. I’m actively working against this because it is exhausting and useless. You can’t make everyone like you and you shouldn’t try to. And I don’t want my daughter to feel like she needs to try!! She is also on the spectrum and we’re doing everything we can to make her experience better than our own!
It would be hard to make the right choice after how awful he was to all the people in Mike/JB’s life, but yes if I was him I would help Lawrence.
JB/Mike’s sister described “moments” very vaguely but also as something you would know when you had them. Some big things that are different for different people – falling in love, losing people, achievements etc. I’ve definitely had several in my life.

About the Author

Paul grew up in a west London suburb (not unlike the suburbs in which his latest book – Miracle Number Four – is based) and now lives in Berkshire. Married with two children, he is passionate about music, sport and, most of all, writing, on which he now concentrates full-time. Paul has written four novels and his primary literary ambition is that you enjoy reading them while he is hard at work on the next one (but still finding time to play drums).

Amazon US: https://a.co/d/0jdIhLF
Amazon UK: https://amzn.eu/d/7pZz2KU
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/61630962-miracle-number-four
Publishers’s Website: https://bluescalepublishing.com/