Mazie Reynolds has moxie from the top of her bruised face to the tip of her broken wrist. She married a man she adored, and who adored her in return. But over fourteen years, her happy marriage soured with each new beating. When his attentions shift to their twelve-year-old daughter, Mazie knows it’s time to get the hell out. She hatches a plan to escape. But can she outwit the man she vowed to obey until death do they part?

Mazie is ready to celebrate liberty. She is ready to celebrate freedom. She is ready to celebrate a great day in American history. The day her ancestors were no longer slaves. Mazie remembers the struggles and the triumph, as she gets ready to celebrate Juneteenth.

*"Deserves a standing ovation." --Kirkus Reviews (starred review) *" This is a terrific and realistic piece of historical fiction that is perfect for theater lovers and historical fiction fans." --SLC (starred review) *"The peppy first-person narrative keeps the story zipping along, and adroitly placed period details make the setting come alive in this bighearted, exuberant novel." --Publishers Weekly (starred review) An eighteen-year-old aspiring actress trades in starry Nebraska skies for the bright lights of 1950s Broadway in this show-stopping novel from award-winning author Melanie Crowder. Mazie has always longed to be on Broadway. But growing up in her small Nebraska town, that always seemed like an impossible dream. So when an opportunity presents itself to spend six weeks auditioning, Mazie jumps at the chance, leaving behind everything--and everyone--she's ever known. New York City is a shock to the senses: thrilling, but lonely. Auditions are brutal. Mazie's homesick and she misses the boyfriend whose heart she broke when she left. Nothing is as she expected. With money running out, and faced with too many rejections to count, Mazie is more determined than ever to land a role. But when she discovers that booking a job might mean losing sight of herself, everything Mazie always thought she wanted is called into question. Mazie is the story of a girl caught between two lives--and two loves--as she navigates who she is, what matters most, and the cost of following her dream. Praise for Mazie: "Entertaining and heartfelt."-- Booklist "Mazie’s authenticity makes this novel stand out. Recommended for all collections, especially where theater is popular."– School Library Journal

With more than four million copies sold, Wifey is Judy Blume's hilarious, moving tale of a woman who trades in her conventional wifely duties for her wildest fantasies—and learns a lot about life along the way. Sandy Pressman is a nice suburban wife whose boredom is getting the best of her. She could be making friends at the club, like her husband keeps encouraging her to do. Or working on her golf game. Or getting her hair done. But for some reason, these things don't interest her as much as the naked man on the motorcycle...

Janie Dunn’s dreams of being an opera singer suddenly dim when, at her dying cousin’s request, she flees Boston with her cousin’s newborn son to protect him from his abusive father. She moves to Kansas to live with her brother, who poses as her husband to protect her identity, lest the baby’s father seek her out. But it’s hard living a lie, even more so the closer she grows to her neighbors on the prairie.Aaron Harper lost his wife four years ago in a tragic accident. Without a mother to help raise and educate his two children, Aaron sent them to live with his brother and sister-in-law in Windmill, a few hours’ train ride from his family’s homestead, to attend the local school. Yet Aaron regrets seeing his son and daughter so rarely. He yearns to have them under his roof again, but without someone to educate them, it’s an impossible scenario. Life takes a dire turn for Janie when her brother dies. The Harper family turns out to be the greatest blessing—particularly the handsome Aaron Harper, who keeps the farm running in her brother’s absence. But Janie knows his help is only temporary. Is a marriage of convenience to Aaron Harper the answer to both of their problems? And is Kansas far enough away from Boston that she is safe from the baby’s vengeful father? Or will he come after her and expose the secret she’s worked so hard to conceal?

One Man. One Gun. One Law. It's an American icon: the Western shootist, living by skill, courage and a willingness to spit in death's eye. Now, the greatest names in Western literature turn this mythical character upside down, inside out and every way but loose. . . In The Trouble with Dude, award-winning author Johnny Boggs saddles a once-famous lawman with some high-paying New York dudes in search of Western thrills who get more than they bargained for; in. Uncle Jeff and the Gunfighter Western master storyteller Elmer Kelton chronicles a quarrel between a hardscrabble Texas rancher and a killer for hire--with results that stun a town. . . William W. Johnstone and J.A. Johnstone offer Inferno: A Last Gunfighter Story featuring series hero Frank Morgan. From a pistol-packing woman to a freed slave heading into a Nebraska winter and an education in gun fighting, The Law Of The Gun is about journeys, vendettas, stand-offs, and legends that end--or sometimes just begin--with the roar of a gun. . .

Itamar Moses has been hailed as one of America's most talented young playwrights since his critically acclaimed Bach at Leipzig debuted in 2005. In this anthology of three new plays, Moses blurs the line between fact and fiction, dramatizing today's most infamous news stories. In Back Back Back, the pressures of performance and reputation get the best of three professional baseball players when they are forced to reveal their not-so-natural secrets to winning the game. In Celebrity Row, Moses imagines what Timothy McVeigh, Ted Kaczynski, the 1993 World Trade Center bomber Ramzi Yousef, and the Latin Kings leader Luis Felipe would have philosophized about when they were inhabitants of the same maximum security prison in Colorado. Finally, in Outrage, the dangerous teacher-disciple relationship calls all of academia into question with the help of none other than Socrates and Bertolt Brecht.