New Edelweiss E-galleys (12/19/22)

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

PRIMER AND PUNISHMENT: A House-Flipper Mystery by Diane Kelly
9781250816061 | 2/21/23

The fifth in the delightful cozy mystery series from Diane Kelly set in Nashville, TN—where the real estate market is to die for.

Carpenter Whitney Whitaker and her cousin Buck are looking once again to rehab and resell a house, only this particular house is made of fiberglass, floats, and has been dubbed the Skinny Dipper.

The charming and handsome Grant Hardisty lives on the cabin cruiser in the adjacent slip. At first, he seems like a fairytale prince just slightly past his prime and a little adrift. But the cousins soon learn he’s nothing more than a lazy leech who’s left a half dozen angry ex-wives in his wake and made enemies of all sorts of unsavory folks.

Whitney and Buck are spraying primer on their houseboat when—KABOOM!—Grant’s boat blows sky high. Detective Collin Flynn has no shortage of suspects, but the waters become muddied when several of them confess to the crime. Is one of those who confessed truly guilty, or are they taking a dive for someone else? Might the killer be one of the other suspects who seemed happy to see Grant sleeping with the fishes? When anonymous threats are made against the cousins, Whitney must quickly determine who killed their neighbor at the lake, or she and Buck might also be sunk.

THE SECRET DIARIES OF CHARLES IGNATIUS SANCHO by Paterson Joseph
9781250880376 | 4/11/23

It’s 1746 and Georgian London is not a safe place for a young Black man, especially one who has escaped slavery. After the twinkling lights in the Fleet Street coffee shops are blown out and the great houses have closed their doors for the night, Sancho must dodge slave catchers and worse. The man he hoped would help him—a kindly duke who taught him to write—is dying. Sancho is desperate and utterly alone. So how does the same Charles Ignatius Sancho meet the king, write and play highly acclaimed music, become the first Black person to vote in Britain, and lead the fight to end slavery?

It’s time for him to tell his story, one that begins on a tempestuous Atlantic Ocean and ends at the very center of London life. And through it all, he must ask: Born among death, how much can he achieve in one short life?

BOYS IN THE VALLEY by Philip Fracassi
9781250879035 | 7/11/23

St. Vincent’s Orphanage for Boys. Turn of the century, in a remote valley in Pennsylvania.

Here, under the watchful eyes of several priests, thirty boys work, learn, and worship. Peter Barlow, orphaned as a child by a gruesome murder, has made a new life here. As he approaches adulthood, he has friends, a future…a family.

Then, late one stormy night, a group of men arrive at their door, one of whom is badly wounded, occult symbols carved into his flesh. His death releases an ancient evil that spreads like sickness, infecting St. Vincent’s and the children within. Soon, boys begin acting differently, forming groups. Taking sides.

Others turn up dead.

Now Peter and those dear to him must choose sides of their own, each of them knowing their lives — and perhaps their eternal souls — are at risk.

PERFECT RUIN by Claudia Tan
9781990259630 | 3/7/23

The steamy prequel to PERFECT ADDICTION—and second installment in the Perfect series—introduces Sienna Lane before Kayden Williams enters the picture.

After deciding to attend an underground circuit fight at Breaking Point, Sienna Lane thinks she’s finally met her match – in the form of Jax “Deadbeat” Deneris, the reigning champion. He’s everything that she could ever want. He’s devilishly charming, calculative, and mysterious.

When Sienna’s world is turned upside down by the news of her parent’s divorce and a falling out with her sister, Sienna relies on Jax and the two of them soon live in their own world of MMA training while Sienna moves farther away from the life she once knew. But when Jax’s behavior becomes more erratic and troublesome, Sienna begins to wonder if Jax is the safest person to put all of her trust in.

MISS MATCHED by Wendy Million
9781990259593 | 6/13/23

Tayla Murphy has decided it’s finally time she found her perfect partner, so she pays a hefty fee for a cutting-edge “soulmate” matching service. But the algorithm has a serious glitch, because it pairs her with the one man on earth she never wants to see again: Simon—the man who broke her heart when he called off their engagement six years ago. Then Simon shows up on her doorstep, promising he can get her a refund by showing the service the match was wrong. But he wants her to really prove it—by dating him for the next month.

WOLFSONG by TJ Klune
9781250890313 | 7/4/23

From the beloved New York Times bestselling author of THE HOUSE IN THE CERULEAN SEA, come these beautiful new hardcover editions of his most popular romance books, the Green Creek series.

Ox Matheson was twelve when his father taught him a lesson: Ox wasn’t worth anything and people would never understand him. Then he left.

Ox was sixteen when the energetic Bennett family moved in next door, harboring a secret that would change him forever. For the family are shapeshifters, who can transform into wolves at will. Drawn to their magic, loyalty and enduring friendships, Ox feels a gulf between this extraordinary new world and the quiet life he’s known. He also finds an ally in Joe, the youngest Bennett boy. Joe is charming and handsome, but haunted by scars he cannot heal.

Ox was twenty-three when murder came to town, and tore a hole in his heart. Violence flared, tragedy split the pack and Joe left town, leaving Ox behind. Three years later, the boy is back. Except now he’s a man – and Ox can no longer ignore the song that howls between them.

THE PEACH SEED by Anita Gail Jones
9781250872050 | 8/1/23

A multigenerational novel and an epic debut that explores the origins of a south Georgia family’s tradition and how its modern-day sons and daughters struggle the legacies of America’s Civil Rights Movement and the far-reaching impacts of the 1800s slave trade from Senegal to Charleston, S.C.

On a routine day, Fletcher Dukes drives his older sister, Olga, who is losing her sight, to do weekly grocery shopping at the Piggly Wiggly. On the liquor aisle, they pass a tall woman, head bowed reading a wine label. Fletcher smells her perfume first, then sees a strawberry birthmark on the nape of a woman’s neck and knows at once that this is his lost love, Altovise Benson. Fletcher and Altovise risked their lives together in sit-ins and marches, but their plan to marry was interrupted when the police turned a peaceful protest violent. The two were jailed in different towns leading to a separation that would ultimately span 52 years. Before Altovise’s departure, Fletcher carves her a peach seed monkey with diamond eyes. As we learn via harrowing flashbacks to 1800’s Senegal, an undiscovered Dukes ancestor who was sold into slavery carved the first monkey—the Peach Seed Monkey that forms the talismanic tradition, the rite of passage, that each generation of Dukes man gifts to his son on his 13th birthday—along with the tools and knowledge to carve them himself. By giving one to Altovise Fletcher initiates a physical and spiritual break in a tradition that like the Civil Rights Movement irrevocably shapes the lives of future generations including a Fletcher’s daughters, his grandson, Bo-D and a constellation of Dukes in the present.

HISTORY’S ANGEL by Anjum Hasan
9781639730407 | 7/18/23

The US debut of a Man Asian Literary Prize longlisted author, the story of a middle-aged man in contemporary India discovering that neither his life nor his country are as stable as he thought.

Alif is a mild-mannered history teacher, living at a time in India’s history when Muslims are seen either as hapless victims or live threats. Though his life’s passion is the history he teaches, the present is pressing down on him: his wife is set on a bigger house and a better car while trying to ace her MBA exams; his teenage son wants to quit school to get rich; his supercilious colleagues are suspicious of a Muslim teaching India’s history; and his old friend Ganesh has just reconnected with a childhood sweetheart with whom Alif was always rather enamored himself.

And then the unthinkable happens. While Alif is leading a school field trip, a Hindu student goads him about being Muslim, and in a fit of anger, Alif twists his ear. Suddenly out of a job, Alif finds his life rapidly descending into chaos. Meanwhile, his home city, too, darkens under the spreading shadow of violence. In this darkly funny, sharply observed, and shockingly moving novel, Anjum Hasan deftly and delicately explores the life of Muslims in India and the force and the consequences of remembering your people’s history under an establishment who don’t want to hear it.

THE WONDER STATE by Sara Flannery Murphy
9780374601775 | 7/18/23

Five friends arrive back in Eternal Springs, the small town they all fled after high-school graduation. Each of them is drawn home by a cryptic, scrawled two-word letter: You promised.

It has been fifteen years since that life-changing summer, and they’re anxious to find out why Brandi called them back, especially when they vowed never to return.

But Brandi is missing. She’d been acting erratically for months, in and out of rehab, railing at whoever might listen about magic all around them. About a power they can’t see. And strange houses that appear only when you need them…

Told in two enthralling time lines, THE WONDER STATE is a stunning, immersive follow-up to GIRL ONE. Sara Flannery Murphy has created another dazzling, genre-blurring novel—an adventure story laced with nostalgia and magic, exploring belonging and the lasting power of community.

YOURS TRULY, THE DUKE by Amelia Grey
9781250850416 | 3/28/23

The first in the new historical romance trilogy, Say I Do, about dukes needing to wed to tap into their wealth by New York Times bestseller Amelia Grey!

At the top of his game in fencing, cards, and social life, the Duke of Wyatthaven has no interest in marriage. However, Wyatt has just found out he has to marry by week’s end or lose a sizable inheritance from his grandmother. When Wyatt’s solicitor finds the perfect young lady, who also needs to marry, Wyatt considers this little hiccup solved. Miss Hale is suitable to be Wyatt’s wife in every aspect that would be of importance. She’s lovely in countenance, disposition, and intelligence. Most importantly, she prefers the country life to London and is guardian for her late sister’s children, so he doesn’t have to rush to have an heir to make her happy.

Fredericka Hale needs a husband and fast. She’s been caring for her deceased sister’s three young children for over a year. Now, an older married but childless cousin has petitioned Chancery Court to take the children from Fredericka and raise them as her own. Fredericka’s solicitor has assured her she will have a better chance of keeping the children if she is married. The last thing Fredericka wants is a hurried-up marriage to a man she doesn’t love, but she will do it for the children. When the wild Duke of Wyatthaven proposes, she accepts. But things seldom happen as one plans, and circumstances force Fredericka to show up at the duke’s door and announce she and the children must live with him in London as a proper couple and family should. But will the duke give up his bachelor lifestyle and give into the attraction growing between them?