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.

A second-hand book shop in Wellington, New Zealand wound up with a copy of Bloody Mama by Robert Thom, a book published in 1970 about Ma Barker and her sons. According to Radio New Zealand News, it was removed from the book shop by the Department of Internal Affairs.

What???!!!

To say I am appalled is an understatement. As a teenager, I’m used to (sad to say) books being challenged by parents and removed for review by the schools. And I’ve even heard of a book being banned in a town before (although not recently), but that today, in 2011, a book can be banned for an ENTIRE COUNTRY is beyond belief. The book was confiscated from a second-hand bookstore by an arm of the government… not taken off the shelves of a school, which means that the government has decreed that the book should not be read — even by adults. Really New Zealand??? That people think that teenagers cannot make an appropriate decision, is maddening to say the least, but that the government has decided that ALL of the people in an entire country are incapable of handling the contents between the covers of a book is absurd. Maybe the most disturbing of all is that the Department of Internal Affairs arrived at the second-hand bookstore after an anonymous tip.

So, what is sooooo bad about Bloody Mama that a country is not allowed to read it? I couldn’t find a book blurb, but the movie, also made in 1970, had a write up:

A psychological gangster film based on fact. Machine gun totin’ Ma Barker lead her family gang (her sons) on a crime spree in the Depression era. Her loyal brood have every perversion imaginable. The sadistic Herman sleeps with his Ma. When Fred Barker is released from prison, he brings home his cell mate/lover Kevin Dirkman, who also sleeps with Ma, much to Fred’s chagrin. Lloyd Barker is a spaced-out drug addict who sniffs glue if nothing better is around. Ma kidnaps happy-go-lucky millionaire Sam Adams Pendlebury and holds him for ransom. Arthur Barker – Ma’s wallflower son – and Herman’s hooker lady friend Mona Gibson also figure in the story. The bloody finale is virtually choreographed and a visual stunner. Filmed in the Ozarks.

Apparently, the suggestion of incestuous relationships is what caused this book to be banned. Again, really??? The book has now been passed by the Department of Internal Affairs to the Office of Film and Literature Classification to see whether they feel it can be removed from the list. On this whole thing, I have to agree with Mr. Hollander, the bookstore owner, “…people should be free to read any book.”

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!!!!

In July, after reading about Samuel and Takeimi, I couldn’t stop thinking about them. So I googled a few things and found out that Samuel and Takeimi are not alone. One story led to another. More than five thousand teenagers die every year because of alcohol in some way. That’s too many.

I felt like I needed to do something because thinking about Samuel and Takeimi would bring me to tears. It’s just so sad. Sarah told me it’s because Daddy’s death is still so close to me. I miss him so much it hurts, but my tears were for Takeimi and Samuel and all the others for the things that will never be, the things they’ll never get to do.

They only live on in memories. I never knew any of them personally, but through reading their stories, I feel like I carry a little piece of them in me. I have to stop now, or I’ll start bawling again. Please watch the video and remember.

Three of the girls got sick, and Takeimi died. I’m sure she didn’t want to. She probably didn’t even know it could happen. She was only fourteen-years-old. The same age as me.

I’m not gonna lie…I’m no angel. I made the same mistake Takeimi did — not exactly the same, but close enough. From what I’ve read, Takeimi didn’t have a drinking problem, she was considered a “good girl”. In fact, she reminds me of my friend Jewelz in a way. She was outgoing, social, and loved music and theater, just like Jewelz.

The school and police keep saying that hopefully Takeimi’s death will cause parents to talk with their kids about how dangerous alcohol is. Especially for kids my age and younger. Daddy used to talk to me about drinking and why I shouldn’t do it. But I did anyway. Because even though I listened to his words, I didn’t really hear them. Not in a way that matters anyway. I thought he was just trying to scare me by exaggerating how dangerous it is.

Even after Tim and I burned down a shed, it didn’t click that if we hadn’t been drinking or smoking it wouldn’t have happened. It was just an accident. Maybe parents need to find examples like Takeimi and Samuel, kids just like us, and talk about what happened and why they’re afraid it might happen to us. I know their stories have hit home with me, and maybe I’ll remember the next time I’m tempted to take a drink.

It might not end so well.

And I’ll bet the kids who went to school with Takeimi won’t forget what happened to her. Would you?

I couldn’t help myself, I had to look into it to see whether or not it was some sick joke. And found out that it wasn’t… not in so many words. They have a facebook page and started posting signs like the one above all over Troy. But when looking at their Facebook page, I saw that it was actually part of some sort of political argument about taxes. I kinda went off on a rant to Sarah about the whole thing because I couldn’t understand why someone urging people to vote to raise taxes to save the library would threaten to have a book burning party if it failed. Does that make sense??

Sarah told me that it was a misguided attempt on the part of library supporters to use reverse psychology to sway people into voting to increase taxes. How stupid is that? Besides, what if there is a bunch of people who followed them because they thought they were going to actually get to burn books. They are going to be sadly disappointed because the last tweet (as of this moment) on the twitter account of these lunatics is:

There’s no book burning party. There never was. But now there’s awareness. Vote YES Aug 2.

I know I’m not old enough to vote, but trying to sway my vote that way would make me very angry and might even make me vote the opposite way. I don’t want to see a library closed. There are too many closing these days, but to think that someone would have the nerve to even suggest burning books as a plausible response–even if they really didn’t mean it is sick. Now it’s being called a hoax… I call it dirty politics. Is this really what we’ve come to in politics? And what happens to the people who tried to sway the public by lying to them? What example does that give us? That it’s okay to lie as long as it gives you the results you want? That sounds like Harvey’s logic to me. Disgusting is what I call it.

And NO friend of the library would ever think about burning books.

Samuel drowned in a river, and when they did the autopsy on him, his blood alcohol level (BAC) was 0.27!!! Apparently someone bought him some whiskey and it would take about 10 drinks to make his blood alcohol level that high. That’s a lot of whiskey. All I know is after the graduation ceremony at his school, he was given a half-gallon of whiskey and wound up dead.

I think why this story hit me so hard is that it could have been me. Tim and I got lucky when we tried drinking. He took some of his dad’s rum and we nearly burned Mr. Pickford’s shed down. It could have been so much worse. We both lived, and the shed didn’t burn out of control. It was still scary though.

I think another reason why I really feel for Samuel is that he drowned in a river. And having nearly drowned after Harvey left me blindfolded, gagged, and bound in a river, I wonder if Samuel panicked like I did. Or whether he was too drunk to know that he was drowning. I hope in a way he didn’t know. Those moments in the river will stay with me forever. It was awful, and I don’t like to think of him going through the same thing.

Sixteen is too young to die. There was too much ahead for him that he now won’t do. Something for us all to think about.