One tough rancher-girl plus one hot cowboy adds up to trouble. Kiersten Day hates all things Texan – including and especially one CJ Howell. The cattle rancher gone real estate mogul has set his sights on her tiny Colorado ranch, trying every dirty trick in the book to make her sell. When his manager stoops to threatening her, Kiersten prepares for the fight of her life. Enter Cleve: tall, handsome good-guy, who she falls flat on her Texas-hating face for. The problem? Cleve is Howell’s son, and doesn’t believe his father is behind all the sinister things happening to her. How could he be the offspring of the monster she’s been battling? Cleve never imagined love could be so complicated. Of all the girls he could fall for, it had to be one bent on hating men. Kiersten is the only person who’s ever stood up to his father’s Texan guerrilla business tactics—and won! She’s possibly pregnant, oblivious to her best friend mooning over her, determined to keep the family ranch despite increasing threats, and the prettiest little thing he’s laid eyes on. It just couldn’t be easy, could it? Content warning: a hot cowboy, an overprotective grandpa, a meddling BFF with his own love-life troubles, a woman set to win the battle no matter the cost, and frequent use of cowboy four-letter “French” words.

A critique of the American obsession with diversity argues that we are ignoring the ever-widening economic divide in American society, that diversity has created a false notion of social justice, and that we need to emphasize equality over diversity.

"Desperately affecting." —The New York Times “Generous and epic...takes us through generations of a singular family, whose loves and losses also tell us a story about America itself." —Eliot Schrefer, National Book Award finalist, author of Endangered Justin Deabler's Lone Stars follows the arc of four generations of a Texan family in a changing America. Julian Warner, a father at last, wrestles with a question his husband posed: what will you tell our son about the people you came from, now that they're gone? Finding the answers takes Julian back in time to Eisenhower's immigration border raids, an epistolary love affair during the Vietnam War, crumbling marriages, queer migrations to Cambridge and New York, up to the disorienting polarization of Obama's second term. And in these answers lies a hope: that by uncloseting ourselves—as immigrants, smart women, gay people—we find power in empathy.

When Mathilde’s stepfather dies in Denmark, she is plagued by worries about the potential death of her American father on the other side of the Atlantic. In a desire to catalog her love for, and memories with, her father, Mathilde travels to America and writes a novel about their relationship that she has always known she should write. Lone Star is about distances: the miles between a father and daughter; the detachment between Mathilde’s Danish upbringing and her American family; the separation of language; and the passage of time between Mathilde’s adulthood and the summers she spent as a child in St. Louis. These irrevocable gaps swirl as Mathilde voyages to meet her father in Texas to explore a relationship that still has time to grow. At once a travelogue and family novel, Lone Star occupies the often-mythologized landscape of Texas to share a story of being alive and claiming the right to feel at home, even across the ocean.

An uplifting story about role models, football, and tackling fear set in the heart of Friday Night Lights country—from the bestselling author of Heat, Travel Team, and Fantasy League. Clay is a quarterback's dream. When he zips across the field, arms outstretched, waiting for the ball to sail into his hands, there's no denying him the catch. Like most Texans, Clay is never more at home than when playing football. And his coach, a former star player for the Dallas Cowboys, is just like a second father. But as the football season kicks off, Clay begins to notice some odd behavior from his coach--lapses in his memory and strange mood swings. The conclusion is painful, but obvious: Coach Cooper is showing side effects of the many concussions he sustained during his playing days. As Clay's season wears on, it becomes clear that the real victory will be to help his coach walk onto that famous star logo in the middle of Cowboys Field one last time--during a Thanksgiving day ceremony honoring him and his former Super Bowl-winning teammates. In Lone Stars, #1 New York Times bestseller Mike Lupica demonstrates once again that there is no children's sports novelist today who can match his ability to weave a story of vivid sports action and heartfelt emotion. A touching story that proves life is bigger than a game. Praise for Lone Stars "Lupica has crafted another fine sports story for the middle school reader."—VOYA "Young readers, no matter their level of interest in the game, will be drawn in by this touching, timely story."—Booklist "There is plenty of great football action to keep the sports enthusiasts engaged, and the information about concussive injury is easily understood and applied. This is an entertaining read that also imparts an important message."—School Library Connection

Texas announces it will leave the United States and form a new country. Families, friends, and professionals across the United States see old loyalties broken and new loyalties forged in the fires of personal ambition and necessity. Unknown, average young people find themselves on the tip of the spear of the upstart Texas Defense Force, formed to protect the new country. In a night that will forever change his destiny, going-nowhere sales clerk Michael Minze discovers he has a talent for killing, and bright but underachieving student Ann Militzer is offered a graduation present she can't refuse as a reward for her loyalty: the keys to a supersonic warplane. The leadership of the United States vows to stop Texas from seceding. And war ravages the nation.

Already excerpted in the New Yorker, Black Cloud Rising is a compelling and important historical novel that takes us back to an extraordinary moment when enslaved men and women were shedding their bonds and embracing freedom By fall of 1863, Union forces had taken control of Tidewater Virginia, and established a toehold in eastern North Carolina, including along the Outer Banks. Thousands of freed slaves and runaways flooded the Union lines, but Confederate irregulars still roamed the region. In December, the newly formed African Brigade, a unit of these former slaves led by General Edward Augustus Wild—a one-armed, impassioned Abolitionist—set out from Portsmouth to hunt down the rebel guerillas and extinguish the threat. From this little-known historical episode comes Black Cloud Rising, a dramatic, moving account of these soldiers—men who only weeks earlier had been enslaved, but were now Union infantrymen setting out to fight their former owners. At the heart of the narrative is Sergeant Richard Etheridge, the son of a slave and her master, raised with some privileges but constantly reminded of his place. Deeply conflicted about his past, Richard is eager to show himself to be a credit to his race. As the African Brigade conducts raids through the areas occupied by the Confederate Partisan Rangers, he and his comrades recognize that they are fighting for more than territory. Wild’s mission is to prove that his troops can be trusted as soldiers in combat. And because many of the men have fled from the very plantations in their path, each raid is also an opportunity to free loved ones left behind. For Richard, this means the possibility of reuniting with Fanny, the woman he hopes to marry one day. With powerful depictions of the bonds formed between fighting men and heartrending scenes of sacrifice and courage, Black Cloud Rising offers a compelling and nuanced portrait of enslaved men and women crossing the threshold to freedom.

"Jamie Margolin is among the powerful and inspiring youth activists leading a movement to demand urgent action on the climate crisis. With determined purpose and moral clarity, Jamie is pushing political leaders to develop ambitious plans to confront this existential threat to humanity. Youth To Power is an essential how-to for anyone of any age who feels called to act to protect our planet for future generations." --- Former Vice President Al Gore Climate change activist and Zero Hour cofounder Jamie Margolin offers the essential guide to changemaking for young people. The 1963 Children's March. The 2016 Dakota Access Pipeline protests. March for Our Lives, and School Strike for Climate. What do all these social justice movements have in common?They were led by passionate, informed, engaged young people. Jamie Margolin has been organizing and protesting since she was fourteen years old. Now the co-leader of a global climate action movement, she knows better than most how powerful a young person can be. You don't have to be able to vote or hold positions of power to change the world. In Youth to Power, Jamie presents the essential guide to changemaking, with advice on writing and pitching op-eds, organizing successful events and peaceful protests, time management as a student activist, utilizing social and traditional media to spread a message, and sustaining long-term action. She features interviews with prominent young activists including Tokata Iron Eyes of the #NoDAPL movement and Nupol Kiazolu of the #BlackLivesMatter movement, who give guidance on handling backlash, keeping your mental health a priority, and how to avoid getting taken advantage of. Jamie walks readers through every step of what effective, healthy, intersectional activism looks like. Young people have a lot to say, and Youth to Power will give you the tools to raise your voice.

"Colleen is a master storyteller." --Karen Kingsbury, New York Times bestselling author For most, it's the safest place on earth. For Gracie, it's the last place she wants to be . . . and the one place she must return. With nothing but five dollars and the wedding dress she's wearing, Gracie Lister flees with her daughter by train to West Texas, to the town she ran away from so long ago. There they find refuge in the home of Michael Wayne--devoted single father and seasoned soldier--who gives Gracie a job caring for his two children and the hiding place she needs from her former fiancé. Michael and Gracie aren't looking for love, but it finds them right away. And then trouble comes to call in the form of Gracie's ex-fiancé who is now on the FBI's most-wanted list. Together, Michael and Gracie must find the strength they need to protect their newly forged family. "Colleen weaves intrigue and God's love into a story full of carefully crafted characters. If you're looking for an awesome writer, I highly recommend her!" --Tracie Peterson, best-selling author of Dawn's Prelude, Song of Alaska Series Full-length romantic suspense Includes discussion questions for book clubs Part of the Lonestar series, but can be read as a standalone Book One: Lonestar Sanctuary Book Two: Lonestar Secrets Book Three: Lonestar Homecoming Book Four: Lonestar Angel

"Alan Weisman has come as close as anyone to unraveling one of the big mysteries of the television age: who is the real Dan Rather? Weisman has devoted much time, energy, and talent to that question, and this book is a fascinating read." --Robert Pierpoint, former CBS News correspondent "There is no career in modern television journalism that is more fascinating, complicated, controversial, or accomplished than that of Dan Rather, and there is no one who has focused the attention of colleagues, TV writers, competitors, and, of course, critics to a similar degree over the last twenty-five years. Alan Weisman's lively account of this remarkable life explains why the quest to understand Rather has remained so vital and important." --Verne Gay, television critic, Newsday "This book is an attempt to take a few steps back from Memogate and examine the whole picture -- the scope and breadth of Dan Rather's life, career, and times. If he mattered enough to be watched by untold millions of people for fifty years on television, then his story matters enough to be told as fully as possible." --From Lone Star: The Extraordinary Life and Times of Dan Rather