New Edelweiss E-galleys (12/5/22)

Hello e-galley readers! Check out some of the exciting e-galleys that were recently added to Edelweiss for your downloading pleasure:

MADDALENA AND THE DARK by Julia Fine
9781250867872 | 6/13/23

For fans of THE INVISIBLE LIFE OF ADDIE LARUE and MEXICAN GOTHIC, a novel set in 18th-century Venice at a prestigious music school, about two girls drawn together by a dangerous wager.

Venice, 1717. Before she meets Maddalena, fifteen-year-old Luisa has only wanted one thing: to be the best at violin. As a student at the Ospedale della Pietà, she hopes to join the highest ranks of its illustrious girls’ orchestra and be no longer just an orphan but a star, protégé of the great Antonio Vivaldi. Luisa is good at violin, but she is not the best. She has peers, but she does not have friends. Until Maddalena.

Sent to the Pietà to be reformed until the rumors about her noble family have passed, Maddalena is unlike anyone Luisa has met. Clever, reckless, and passionate, Maddalena can promise the world to Luisa, and when she does, their fates intertwine. But Maddalena has made a wager with something deep in the waters of Venice, and there will be a price to pay.

Heady, sumptuous, and utterly enthralling, MADDALENA AND THE DARK is the love story between two girls and the boundless desires that might ruin them.

THROUGH YOU by Ariana Godoy
9781990778445 | 1/17/23

In the hotly anticipated sequel to the international bestseller THROUGH MY WINDOW, housekeeper Claudia discovers that her deep connection with the eldest Hidalgo brother is worth fighting for.

PLANES, TRAINS, AND ALL THE FEELS by Livy Hart
9781649373922 | 5/23/23

Planes, Trains, and Automobiles gets a sexy reboot when two complete strangers hit the road on a trip full of distractions, detours, and disasters, perfect for fans of Emily Henry and Tessa Bailey.

When Cassidy Bliss vowed she’d do anything to get to California in time for her sister’s wedding, she never expected “anything” would involve sharing the last rental car in all of south Missouri with the devastatingly hot—and infuriating—Luke Carlisle.

Mr. Tall, Blond and Overly Competent may be the oil to her water and the yield to her merge, but with flights grounded and Cassidy’s judgemental family depending on her arrival ASAP, horrible times call for here-goes-nothing-measures. It’s either ride with him, or continue her reign as Worst Bliss Sister and let her family down. Again.

Luke Carlisle’s plate is full. Overflowing. With a sick mother who needs his help, siblings who need support, and a job that demands all his time, his inconvenient attraction to sexy spitfire Cassidy is a Big Problem. His priorities do not leave room for love, let alone distractions, detours, or disasters on this trip.

The universe has other ideas. As the hits keep coming and the longer they’re trapped in tight quarters, the walls they’ve put up start to crack. But after a life of being second-best, Cassidy isn’t about to risk her heart on an unavailable man. Which would be a heck of a lot easier if he’d keep those baby hazels on the road and his hands on the wheel…

RETURN TO VALETTO by Dominic Smith
9780374607685 | 6/13/23

A nearly abandoned Italian village, the family that stayed, and long-buried secrets from World War II.

On a hilltop in Umbria sits Valetto. Once a thriving village—and a hub of resistance and refuge during World War II—centuries of earthquakes, landslides, and the lure of a better life have left it neglected. Only ten residents remain, including the widows Serafino—three eccentric sisters and their steely centenarian mother—who live quietly in their medieval villa. Then their nephew and grandson, Hugh, a historian, returns.

But someone else has arrived before him, laying claim to the cottage where Hugh spent his childhood summers. The unwelcome guest is the captivating and no-nonsense Elisa Tomassi, who asserts that the family patriarch, Aldo Serafino, a resistance fighter whom her own family harbored, gave the cottage to them in gratitude. But like so many threads of history, this revelation unravels a secret—a betrayal, a disappearance, and an unspeakable act of violence—that has impacted Valetto across generations. Who will answer for the crimes of the past?

Dominic Smith’s RETURN TO VALETTO is a riveting journey into one family’s dark history, a page-turning excavation of the ruins of history and our commitment to justice in a fragile world. For fans of Amor Towles, Anthony Doerr, and Jess Walter, it is a deeply human and transporting testament to the possibility of love and understanding across gaps of all kinds—even time.

GONE TO THE WOLVES by John Wray
9780374603335 | 5/2/23

Kip, Kira, and Leslie are outliers, even in the metal scene they love. In arch-conservative backwoods Florida in the 1980s, just listening to heavy metal can get you arrested—but the risk is worth taking, because music is what leads them to each other.

Different from one another as they are, the three of them form a family of sorts, one that proves safer and more loving than the broken homes they come from. Together, they make the pilgrimage from Florida’s swamp country to L.A.’s fabled Sunset Strip—but the beautiful new life they’ve dreamed of soon proves a mirage. Kira finds herself drawn to ever darker and more extreme strains of metal, drifting toward a place where her two friends, for all their love, can’t follow. On a trip to Europe for her twenty-second birthday, in the middle of a show, she simply vanishes. Years later, the shocking truth about her disappearance reunites Kip and Leslie, whose search for her takes them from California to the snowbound woods of Norway. But bringing Kira home will require a greater sacrifice than either could imagine.

In his most daring novel yet, John Wray dives deep into the wild, funhouse world of metal true believers and the doomsday cults that flourished at the end of the twentieth century. GONE TO THE WOLVES lays bare the intensity, the tumult, and the rapture of friendship in late adolescence—a time when music can often feel like life or death.

THE SAINT OF BRIGHT DOORS by Vajra Chandrasekera
9781250847386 | 7/11/23

Fetter was raised to kill, honed as a knife to cut down his sainted father. This gave him plenty to talk about in therapy. He walked among invisible powers: devils and anti-gods that mock the mortal form. He learned a lethal catechism, lost his shadow, and gained a habit for secrecy. After a blood-soaked childhood, Fetter escaped his rural hometown for the big city, and fell into a broader world where divine destinies are a dime a dozen.

Everything in Luriat is more than it seems. Group therapy is recruitment for a revolutionary cadre. Junk email hints at the arrival of a god. Every door is laden with potential, and once closed may never open again. The city is scattered with Bright Doors, looming portals through which a cold wind blows. In this unknowable metropolis, Fetter will discover what kind of man he is, and his discovery will rewrite the world.

MR KATO PLAYS FAMILY by Milena Michiko Flašar
9781250842497 | 6/20/23

An eccentric second-lease-on-life novel for fans of A MAN CALLED OVE and THE STORY OF ARTHUR TRULUV.

Mr Kato—a curmudgeon and recent retiree—finds his only solace during his daily walks, where he wonders how his life went wrong and daydreams about getting a dog (which his wife won’t allow). During one of these walks, he is approached by a young woman who calls herself Mie, who invites him to join her business Happy Family, which hires people to act as part-time relatives or acquaintances; helping clients in need of a family member, for whatever reason, if only for a day.

At first reluctant, but then intrigued, he takes the job without telling his wife or adult children. Through the many roles he takes on, Mr Kato rediscovers the excitement and spontaneity of life, and re-examines his role in his own family. Using lessons learned with his “play families,” he strives to reconnect with his loved ones, to become the father and husband they deserve, and to live the life he’s always wanted.

THE SALT GROWS HEAVY by Cassandra Khaw
9781250830913 | 5/2/23

After murdering her husband and burning his kingdom to cinders, a mermaid joins a strange doctor on a journey through the eerie taiga. Deep in the woods, the pair stumble upon a village, full of seemingly ageless children and the three surgeons who oversee them—called only “the saints.”

After discovering the villagers’ taste for a sinister blood sport, the mermaid and her companion must embrace the darkest parts of their true nature, if they hope to survive.

THE ARCHIVE UNDYING by Emma Mieko Candon
9781250821546 | 6/27/23

When the robotic god of Khuon Mo went mad, it destroyed everything it touched. It killed its priests, its city, and all its wondrous works. But in its final death throes, the god brought one thing back to life: its favorite child, Sunai. For the seventeen years since, Sunai has walked the land like a ghost, unable to die, unable to age, and unable to forget the horrors he’s seen. He’s run as far as he can from the wreckage of his faith, drowning himself in drink, drugs, and men. But when Sunai wakes up in the bed of the one man he never should have slept with, he finds himself on a path straight back into the world of gods and machines.

THE ARCHIVE UNDYING is the first volume of Emma Mieko Candon’s Downworld Sequence, a sci-fi series where AI deities and brutal police states clash, wielding giant robots steered by pilot-priests with corrupted bodies. Come get in the robot.

THE POISONER’S RING: A Rip Through Time Novel by Kelley Armstrong
9781250820037 | 5/23/23

A modern-day homicide detective is working as an undertaker’s assistant in Victorian Scotland when a serial poisoner attacks the men of Edinburgh and leaves their widows under suspicion.

Edinburgh, 1869: Modern-day homicide detective Mallory Atkinson is adjusting to her new life in Victorian Scotland. Her employers know she’s not housemaid Catriona Mitchell—even though Mallory is in Catriona’s body—and Mallory is now officially an undertaker’s assistant. Dr. Duncan Gray moonlights as a medical examiner, and their latest case hits close to home. Men are dropping dead from a powerful poison, and all signs point to the grieving widows… the latest of which is Gray’s oldest sister.

Poison is said to be a woman’s weapon, though Mallory has to wonder if it’s as simple as that. But she must tread carefully. Every move the household makes is being watched, and who knows where the investigation will lead.

New York Times bestselling author Kelley Armstrong is known for her exquisite world building, and this latest series is no exception. THE POISONER’S RING brings the intricacies of Victorian Scotland alive as Mallory again searches for a 19th-century killer as well as a way home.