For the entire month of February, the print versions of the award-winning Misfit McCabe series will be available for 25% off the cover price through my website. Use coupon code NDD0Z8Z79YRD at time of checkout. That’s right, you can purchase Misfit McCabe, Nowhere Feels Like Home, AND the brand-new Tattered through the Griffie World store and receive 25%, or more than $2 per book off.

And for those of you who have entered the eReader world, I’m not leaving you out!! For the entire month of February you’ll be able to purchase Misfit McCabe and Nowhere Feels Like Home in the digital format of your choice for 50% off the regular ebook price. For Misfit McCabe use coupon code TX74G and for Nowhere Feels Like Home use coupon code YG82K.

Wait a second!!! I can’t leave Tattered out of the discounted book love. If you’re an Amazon Prime member, you already can download Tattered for free (which will be the case for a limited time), BUT for anyone who’d like a copy of Tattered, it will be available for FREE as a Kindle download from 2/14/12 — 2/16/12. Don’t have a Kindle? No problem, did you know that there is a free Kindle PC app as well as Kindle apps for other devices?

So thank you to my current readers (I love you all) and welcome to my world for all my new readers. I truly appreciate sharing my stories with you.

About the Books:

Book 1 – Misfit McCabe
When Katie McCabe accidentally burns down a neighbor’s shed, she thinks it’s the worst thing that could happen. Boy is she ever wrong. Hustled off to live with her Uncle Charley, Katie struggles with the changes in her life. The only bright spot is making a friend who wants to be more. But the first person she meets is an enemy with ties to her past who believes in dangerous retribution. How far is he willing to go? Katie wonders if she has the strength to survive.

Book 2 – Nowhere Feels Like Home
Stuck in bed with a broken ankle and reeling from the loss of her father, her home, and life as she knew it, Katie McCabe must deal with her anger toward the town bully and a world that’s fallen apart. Being cooped up in the house with Uncle Charley and three overprotective cousins isn’t helping. Despite her new family’s good intentions, Katie feels like a lonely outsider. Will she ever be happy again?

Book 3 – Tattered
What do Sunday afternoon court proceedings, cheerleader tryouts, and a book burning have in common? Katie McCabe is back in action.

After her nemesis Harvey is found guilty and sentenced to community service, Katie wants to believe her troubles are over, but Harvey won’t rest until he gets revenge. When blackmail rears its ugly head, she’s caught in between friends and enemies putting her growing relationship with Tom at stake. Books go up in flames and Katie’s world rains down in tatters.

Thanks so much to Ellie for bringing the best bright spot possible to my day.

The contest runs from Black Friday (11/25/11) through December 1st 11:59 EST. Coincidentally, December 1st is the launch date for Tattered the third book in the Misfit McCabe series. So that’s another book you could throw on the fire… #justsayin What do you have to do to enter for a chance to win? Follow the below authors on Twitter and Like them on Facebook for chances to win the Fire and lots of cool books. Easy Peasey. Well, what are you waiting for?

From the back cover: What do Sunday afternoon court proceedings, cheerleader tryouts, and a book burning have in common? Katie McCabe is back in action.

After her nemesis Harvey is found guilty and sentenced to community service, Katie wants to believe her troubles are over, but Harvey won’t rest until he gets revenge. When blackmail rears its ugly head, she’s caught between friends and enemies putting her growing relationship with Tom at stake. Books go up in flames and Katie’s world rains down in tatters.

And now….. *drumroll please* …. the cover!!!!

Basically what the article boils down to is that teens who consume five or more sodas per week are more likely to exhibit violent behavior and carry guns and/or knives and significantly more likely to have consumed alcohol or smoked. Unfortunately, they didn’t put a number around the potential for alcohol consumption likelihood, or the smoking, so we’re left to wonder what “significantly” works out to in real-world terms. They did however put a number against the potential for a teen to carry either a knife or a gun. If a teen consumes 14 or more sodas of the sugary variety per week (two per day or more for those who do not like to do the math), then they are 20% more likely to carry a knife or a gun. Actually, the alarming fact in the article to me was not that carrying weapons increases by 20% when someone is a high soda consumer, but that 23% of those polled carry either a knife or a gun on a regular basis. 23%!!!!! I see that I am going to have to rethink some of my characters and start including more who carry weapons.

It is also mentioned in the article that the high consumption of soda (more than five per week) has the same impact on the behavior in teens as alcohol, when it comes to an increase in violent behavior raising the potential from 9%-15% over those who do not consume sodas. Sara J. Solnick and David Hemenway of The University of Vermont and Harvard School of Public Health respectively, concluded that, “The influence of soft drink consumption on violence appears to be a ‘dose-response’ relationship, with effects visible at low levels of consumption and increasing with greater consumption.” Will this lead to pleas in court of “…it wasn’t my fault, Your Honor, I drank soda and couldn’t help myself.”?

Actually, the first thing that came to mind after reading the article was how interesting a study of soda consumption among authors and whether there is a correlation to the amount of suffering they inflict on their characters would be. Followed by the thought that we may need to start including soda consumption as a character trait prior to violent episodes.

Photo: Credit KCSPresse / Splash News

When someone uses their celebrity to help address one of my pet issues, it makes me feel good. That they use their pull and tap into their fanbase to raise awareness about the issue, such as bullying, it gives me hope that something positive will come out of it. Lady Gaga made a point of meeting with President Obama after the suicide of Jamey Rodemeyer to discuss the bullying epidemic, which made me believe she was serious about making a difference. And sure enough, she is launching the Born This Way Foundation in conjunction with her mother, the MacArthur Foundation, The California Endowment, and Berkman.

While there is not much to see yet about the Born This Way Foundation, you can sign up on the landing page. The tag line is Empowering Youth — Inspiring Bravery — both lofty goals. And the meat of the page:

THIS WAY, TOWARDS BRAVERY
WHERE YOUTH ARE EMPOWERED.
THIS WAY, TOWARDS ACCEPTANCE
WHERE HUMANITY IS EMBRACED.
THIS WAY, TOWARDS LOVE
WHERE INDIVIDUALITY IS ENCOURAGED.

Lady Gaga my hat is off to you. Keep up the good work.

From the back cover: What do Sunday afternoon court proceedings, cheerleader tryouts, and a book burning have in common? Katie McCabe is back in action.

After her nemesis Harvey is found guilty and sentenced to community service, Katie wants to believe her troubles are over, but Harvey won’t rest until he gets revenge. When blackmail rears its ugly head, she’s caught between friends and enemies putting her growing relationship with Tom at stake. Books go up in flames and Katie’s world rains down in tatters.

* * * * *

There will definitely be more to come for this book, I will have a preview widget and all the rest. So, stay tuned….

Misfit McCabe sucks the reader into young Katie McCabe’s life as she transitions from her normal, everyday life into a new town full of new people. The pace is quick, but I was never left behind for a moment wondering what was happening. Truly a fast, satisfying read. LK Gardner-Griffe writes fluid prose with very few hiccups along the way. The characters in the story are so real, though the mundane actions they take carry weight.

I had trouble settling into the story and noticed a few awkward phrases, but after the first few pages, I was hooked. Katie McCabe is a troublemaker, and she knows it. What sets her apart though, is that she doesn’t mean to make a mess of things: it just happens. The story starts fast, like a jump into a cool lake. Katie is smoking and drinking with her best friend Timmy out in a shed.

Gardner-Griffe shows us Katie at her weakest and strongest. Katie does not get away with anything she does, and yet I cheered on almost all of her decisions, though as bad as some were, it felt good to see her stand up to a bully—and in this case the bully isn’t some low brow jock, an interesting twist. Katie McCabe, not living up to the traditions of her family name, doesn’t know what she’s in for when she starts a ripple through the town with her arrival.

Katie is faced with tough choices, and she has to mature rapidly in her ever-changing world. She is dumped from the hands of her frustrated, loving (and sick) father, to her unsuspecting Uncle Charley. Throughout the book Katie zips from one emotion to the next. One minute I was jubilant, the next, I wanted to cry, and right after, I wanted to punch someone: I felt like a teenager again.

This story isn’t for those who want to read fluff. Misfit McCabe deals with real problems that teens (and adults) can learn from. Katie makes mistakes, and she pays for them, and importantly she learns. Her father and her uncle make mistakes as well: as does her cousin Sarah. Gardner-Griffe lets them make their mistakes, and we, as the reader, benefit from the choices they make and how they right their wrongs; when they make a good choice after learning, I let go of a breath I didn’t know I was holding!

What I enjoyed most from Misfit McCabe is a peek into what it is like to be a teen again—what the problems feel like, the emotional quicksilver—and the desire to read more. I love a book that pulls me through, and Misfit McCabe does exactly that; I was never dragged too fast, nor waiting for something else to happen.

Would I recommend this book: yes. Wholeheartedly. I will be ordering Nowhere Feels Like Home, and anxiously awaiting the rest of the series. LK Gardner-Griffe is an excellent writer who knows her audience: teens who want real substance, real characters, accessible language, and above all, a darn good story.