Mr. and Mrs. American Pie

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"A gorgeously messy and misguided heroine. I love this story."—Laura Dern
"The perfect blend of salty and sweet."—Booklist (starred review)
"Hilarious."—Refinery29
The year is 1969. Dick Nixon was just sworn in as the thirty-seventh President of the United States. Neil Armstrong just took one small step for man and one giant leap for mankind. And notable Palm Springs socialite Maxine Simmons just found out that her husband is leaving her for his twenty-two-year-old secretary.
After a public meltdown at Thanksgiving, Maxine finds herself not only divorced but exiled to Scottsdale, Arizona. However, these desert boondocks will not be her end—only her Elba. The former beauty queen sets her eyes on a new crown: that of the Mrs. American Pie pageant, awarded to the nation’s best wife and mother.
Maxine only has one problem: to win the crown she’ll need to find—or build—a family of her own.

Juliet McDaniel came of age during a time when beauty pageants were rapidly becoming tacky relics of a far more sexist time, or so she thought. Although raised in Arizona, she spent the last 25 years living in Chicago, and knows its history and culture inside and out, so those places became a fitting home for her characters. Juliet has a B.A. in American Studies from Lake Forest College and a M.A. in Writing from DePaul University. She has had several screenplays optioned, and one produced: indie rom-com QWERTY, released in 2012. Mr. & Mrs. American Pie is her first novel.