Guest Post and Giveaway: The Weekend Bucket List by Mia Kerick

We’re so pleased to have author Mia Kerick joining us today on the tour for her brand new release, The Weekend Bucket List. Mia’s sharing some sage bucket list advice with us today, and there’s also a great giveaway so be sure to check out all the details on the Rafflecopter widget below.

Welcome, Mia!

The Purpose of a Bucket List

A bucket list is a list of things you want to do before you die. And if you think that A YA novel about teenagers consumed with the notion that they need to undergo certain significant lifetime experiences before they “kick the bucket” to be rather morbid, maybe you’re looking at bucket lists in the wrong way. Maybe you’re thinking about a bucket list the way Edward Cole (Jack Nicholson) and Carter Chambers (Morgan Freeman) did in the movie The Bucket List; their age was advancing and their health was failing—time was running out! And so they decided, maybe there’s still time to squeeze in a few long-procrastinated “bucket list items”!”  This isn’t exactly what is happening in my book.

The purpose of creating a bucket list is to get something done that you have put off for way too long. Brainstorming the list helps you understand what your priorities are—and to better know yourself. It’s an eye-opening activity. The act of writing these goals down—or otherwise recording them—makes this list more than a bunch of far-fetched wishes, but real possibilities.

THE GOLDEN RULE OF ALL BUCKET LISTS: YOU MUST WRITE IT ALL DOWN.

Now, in The Weekend Bucket List, Cady and Cooper did not create a list of items they want to accomplish before they die. And this leads to the next area of discussion: there are many different kinds of bucket lists. There are bucket lists of things a person wants to accomplish before turning fifty or before getting married. A bucket list can be of vacation spots you want to visit with your children. The possibilities are endless. In The Weekend Bucket List, model children and students, Cady LaBrie and Cooper Murphy, come up with a bucket list of all of the rebellious things that the other kids in their grade have done, and they have missed out on because they were too busy studying. And they give themselves the forty-eight hours before graduation to cross each item off the list.

I don’t want to spoil the book by filling you in on all the dirty details, but I will say that Cady and Cooper’s list is not at all parent-approved. It includes the consumption of a few bottles of beer, the presence of a piercing gun, and the requirement for first kisses in the dark. But what Cooper, Cady, and the third wheel they pick up along the way, high school drop-out Eli Stanley, don’t realize is that the bucket list they create is not as much about checking off items as gaining self-knowledge. And they will be further surprised to discover that some of this self-knowledge comes with a hefty price tag.

The Weekend Bucket List will definitely make you laugh, and where it may not make you cry, it will make you think. And when you’re finished reading you’ll want to create a bucket list all your own!

About the Book

Title: The Weekend Bucket List

Author: Mia Kerick

Release Date: April 19th 2018

Genre: Young Adult, LGBT

Blurb: High school seniors Cady LaBrie and Cooper Murphy have yet to set one toe out of line—they’ve never stayed out all night or snuck into a movie, never gotten drunk or gone skinny-dipping. But they have each other, forty-eight hours before graduation, and a Weekend Bucket List.

There’s a lot riding on this one weekend, especially since Cady and Cooper have yet to admit, much less resolve, their confounding feelings for one another—feelings that prove even more difficult to discern when genial high school dropout Eli Stanley joins their epic adventure. But as the trio ticks through their bucket list, the questions they face shift toward something new: Must friendship play second fiddle to romance? Or can it be the ultimate prize?

Purchase: Amazon US | Amazon UK | Interlude Press

Find The Weekend Bucket List on Goodreads

Tour Teaser

Ever since we skipped the junior prom together last spring— neither of us is the type to participate in overrated school events, especially ones that involve dancing—and came to this very spot at the end of the Wellington Town Beach, I’ve felt a flicker of “something more” for my longtime BFF. It wasn’t exactly a romantic evening—we listened to eighties music and downed a full bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken while gazing at Tamarack Lake—but for me, our relationship changed. When Cooper touched my face that night I was overwhelmed by an urge for something completely new and different and dangerous: I wanted to kiss him. The urge has been lurking since that night, but right now, it’s stronger than ever. I want so badly to drop down on top of him and plant my lips on his, just to find out how it tastes… just to find out how it feels. But I don’t because it isn’t next on the list.

And because I just don’t.

About the Author

Mia Kerick is the mother of four exceptional children—a daughter in law school, another in dance school, a third studying at Mia’s alma mater, Boston College, and her lone son still in high school.  She writes LGBTQ romance when not editing National Honor Society essays, offering opinions on college and law school applications, helping to create dance bios, and reviewing English papers. Her husband of twenty-four years has been told by many that he has the patience of Job, but don’t ask Mia about this, as it is a sensitive subject.

Mia focuses her stories on emotional growth in turbulent relationships. As she has a great affinity for the tortured hero, there is, at minimum, one in each book. As a teen, Mia filled spiral-bound notebooks with tales of said tortured heroes (most of whom happened to strongly resemble lead vocalists of 1980s big-hair bands) and stuffed them under her mattress for safekeeping. She is thankful to Dreamspinner Press and Harmony Ink Press for providing alternate places to stash her stories.

Her books have won a Best YA Lesbian Rainbow Award, a Reader Views’ Book by Book Publicity Literary Award, the Jack Eadon Award for Best Book in Contemporary Drama, an Indie Fab Award, and a Royal Dragonfly Award for Cultural Diversity, among other awards.

Mia is a Progressive, a little bit too obsessed by politics, and cheers for each and every victory in the name of human rights. Her only major regret: never having taken typing or computer class in school, destining her to a life consumed with two-fingered pecking and constant prayer to the Gods of Technology.

Contact Mia at miakerick@gmail.com. Visit her website for updates on what is going on in Mia’s world, rants, music, parties, and pictures, and maybe even a little bit of inspiration.

Links: Facebook | Twitter

The Giveaway

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