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Abby,
Written by the teacher; edited by her students, Abby, is the Hallmark greeting card of young adult fiction.
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Have you ever been the “new kid?” Five times in seven years? Relating to her diary as her only friend, Abigail Van Buren Masterson finally gets the opportunity to be part of a stable life, complete with grandparents and a neighborhood who knows her. Even if this unexpected gift includes being the target of the school bully, Head Cheerleader Sheila, and surrounded by community members with unpronounceable surnames, Abigail can finally experience a “normal” life. Or at least as normal as life gets when adjusting to her mother’s diagnosis of multiple sclerosis. 
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As a veteran eighth grade language arts teacher and book junky, as well as a newly diagnosed MS patient, the creation of Abby served not only a writing dream-come-true but allowed a teachable moment with the inclusion of my students as editors and advisors in the process. I believe that junior high school is the most pivotal period in our lives; that decades or centuries do not change the largess of adolescent drama. All children long for innocence, even while fighting to be recognized as adults. A 2012 Reader’s Favorite Finalist and 2013 Reader’s Favorite Honor book in YA fiction, Abby is a coming of age tale that touches on the insecurities of adolescence and the emergence of adulthood.

Accolades
  • Reader's Favorite Finalist
  • Purple Dragonfly award for children's literature. 

Raspberry Beret
Finally a friend to call her own! Abigail Van Buren Masterson has embraced her diary as her closest friend for years. When Jesse James comes to town, life gets a lot more interesting!
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Raspberry Beret is the second book in the Wow and Viola! trilogy. Follow Abby through the last year of junior high school where she is faced with frightening events of growing up that prompt the creation of TAG-U (Teens Against Growing-Up), a school club for students who feel they just don't "fit."

Opening Pandora's Box: The Conclusion
All our lives we are cautioned about "opening a Pandora's Box"; but in order to regain lost memories and overcome the devestating grief that drives her into unbearable despair, Abby must tempt fate and open her own box of misery. In this conclusion to Lisa A. McCombs' diary trilogy, life issues of unexpected death, unavoidable depression, and an intense need for frienship bring Abigail Van Buren Masterson's school years to a close.

Accolades
  • Reader's Favorite Honoree

Bombs Bursting in Air
Sitting in a move theater with her dad, Meri checks her phone for a good time to go to the ladies’ room. She leaves during a battle scene and meets her soon-to-be new best friend, Fiona, in the restroom. To their mutual horror, a bomb goes off in the theater. Meri awakes in the hospital to find out her world is changed forever.

Coping with PTSD is real to veterans and to those of all ages who experience shocking horror and loss. Meri sees the changes to her family and her life and with the help of an unlikely friend, her faith, and her family, is able to move forward to a new future.

Accolades
  • Mom’s Choice Award
  • Gold Readers’ Favorite Book Award
  • Gold Literary Classics International Book Award
  • Literary Classics Book Award Finalist
  • Literary Classics Seal of Approval
  • First Place WV Writer’s Award
  • London Book Festival Honorable Mention

The Day Ted Williams Came to Town
Whisked away from life in the city after he and his best friend are arrested for breaking and entering, high school senior Ted Williams plans to lay low until he can graduate and return to his chosen profession. City life is much more exciting than the small-town Ellison, West Virginia. At least he thought so until he met Grace, Nicco, and Pastor Larry. He finds out he might be related to a major league baseball Hall of Famer with his same name and, to his amazement, there is also a ghost haunting his attic bedroom.

Accolades
  • West Virginia Writers Award  Winner

Praise Petals
High School sophomore, Rose Hicks, tolerates her limited social life as long as her sidekick, Jay Allen, is by her side, but when Jay receives the best news of his life Rose is forced to survive the rest of the school year at the mercy of school bully GODZILLY JENKINS. When she is recruited as a member of an all-girl praise team, Rose realizes that even the most popular girls have problems and that mean girls need love too.

Accolades
  • Zoom Into Books Author
  • Gold Mom's Choice Award
  • Paris Book Festival Honorable Mention
  • New York Book Festival Honorable Mention

Ivy and Iris
Identical twins Ivy and Iris learn the value of independence in this snack-sized companion to the award winning Praise Petals: A Church of Go novel by Lisa A.McCombs.

Ivy stutters unless she’s singing. Or unless she’s around Bruce Johnson. Hmmm…
Bruce is all about football unless he's singing.

Really?

Coincidence? Maybe. Maybe not.
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Ivy and Iris first appeared in Praise Petals, a Church of Go novel, but didn’t receive much print time in the original novel. They are here to prove that secondary characters are people, too.

Sheila
He keeps her in the closet, but when she grows into a beautiful young woman there has to be a plan B. Sheila is best known as head cheerleader Sheila from my first book Abby. This is her story. Secondary characters are people too.
​© Lisa A. McCombs - 2023
​All rights reserved by the author.