New Edelweiss E-galleys (2/27/23)

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

 

THE BEE STING by Paul Murray
9780374600303 | 8/15/23

The Barnes family is in trouble. Dickie’s once-lucrative car business is going under—but rather than face the music, he’s spending his days in the woods, building an apocalypse-proof bunker with a renegade handyman. His wife, Imelda, is selling off her jewelry on eBay, while their teenage daughter, Cass, formerly top of her class, seems determined to binge-drink her way through her final exams. And twelve-year-old PJ is putting the final touches on his grand plan to run away from home.

Where did it all go wrong? A patch of ice on the tarmac, a casual favor to a charming stranger, a bee caught beneath a bridal veil—can a single moment of bad luck change the direction of a life? And if the story has already been written—is there still time to find a happy ending?

NEVER WAGER WITH A WALLFLOWER: A NOVEL by Virginia Heath 
9781250787804 | 11/7/23

Miss Venus Merriwell has been waiting for her prince to come since the tender age of fourteen. She wants a man who is selfless, academic like her, and free from all the wretched vices her gambler father enjoyed far too much before he left the Merriwell sisters practically destitute. Unfortunately, after a slew of romantic disappointments, there is still no sign of that prince at twenty-three and the only one true love of her life is the bursting-at-the-seams orphanage in Covent Garden that she works tirelessly for. An orphanage that desperately needs to expand into the empty building next door.

For Galahad Sinclair, gambling isn’t just his life, it’s in his blood. He grew up and learned the trade at his grandfather’s knee in a tavern on the far away banks of the Hudson in New York. But when fate took all that away and dragged him across the sea to London, it made sense to set up shop here. He’s spent five years making a success out of his gaming hell in the sleazy docks of the East End. Enough that he can finally afford to buy the pleasure palace of his dreams—and where better than in the capital’s sinful heart, Covent Garden? The only fly in his ointment is the perfect building he’s just bought to put it in also happens to be right next door to the orphanage run by his cousin’s wife’s youngest sister. A pious, disapproving and unsettling siren he has avoided like the plague since she flattened him five years ago…

While Venus and Galahad lock horns over practically everything, and while her malevolent orphans do their darndest to sabotage his lifelong dream, can either of them take the ultimate gamble—and learn to love thy neighbor?

THE SALT-BLACK TREE by Lilith Saintcrow 
9781250791559 | 8/8/23

Nat Drozdova has crossed half the continent in search of the stolen Dead God’s Heart, the only thing powerful enough to trade for her beautiful, voracious, dying mother’s life. Yet now she knows the secret of her own birth—and that she’s been lied to all her young life.

The road to the Heart ends at the Salt-Black Tree, but to find it Nat must pay a deadly price. Pursued by mouthless shadows hungry for the blood of new divinity as well as the razor-wielding god of thieves, Nat is on her own. Her journey leads through a wilderness of gods old and new, across a country as restless as its mortal inhabitants, and it’s too late to back out now.

Blood may not always prevail. Magic might not always work. And the young Drozdova is faced with an impossible choice: Save her mother’s very existence…

…or accept the consequences of her own.

EVERY DUKE HAS HIS DAY by Suzanne Enoch 
9781250842541 | 9/19/23

Michael Blumley, Duke of Loriton, is viewed as an eccentric by his peers in the ton. He does his duty, of course, but his interest—and talent—lies in the science of electricity. He has no interest in the frivolities of Society. When his favorite aunt, Mary, Lady Harris, leaves her precious, well-behaved black poodle, Lancelot, in his care while she travels his life takes an interesting turn.

Elizabeth “Bitsy” Dockering, third daughter of a viscount, is enjoying her second Season in London. She is a Diamond of the Season and is adored by all—and especially by her precious black poodle, Galahad. To everyone else, however, Galahad is a demon dog. So much so that Peter Cordray, one of Bitsy’s most insistent beaux and a particular victim of Galahad’s bad manners and sharp teeth, has hired a petty thief to steal the dog, clearing the way for his suit.

When the two dogs and their “people” meet in the park, chaos ensues and unknowingly results in a dog swap. Which means Lancelot is kidnapped instead of Galahad! But when both dogs go missing in an ever thickening dognapping plot, Michael and Elizabeth end up coming together to scour London, recover Lancelot and Galahad all while falling in love.

HARD DOUGH HOMICIDE: A SPICE ISLE BAKERY MYSTERY by Olivia Matthews
9781250839060 | 5/23/23

Spice Isle Bakery owner Lyndsay Murray is always looking for new ways to grow her family’s business. But she already regrets agreeing to host the retirement dinner for local high school principal Emily Smith. The tyrant used to be her mother’s boss and they did not get along. Six guests arrive for the celebration, but only five survive. Emily starts convulsing—right after eating the curry chicken—and dies soon after. It’s not long before the police are knocking on Spice Isle’s door, bringing the Murray family back into the heart of another murder investigation—driving away customers in the process. Lyndsay can’t help but wonder if this is the end of the bakery, even though it’s just begun. She must put aside her reservations about investigating another crime, because the Murrays refuse to go down without a fight.

FRIENDS DON’T FALL IN LOVE: A NOVEL by Erin Hahn
9781250827111 | 10/17/23

Lorelai Jones had it all: a thriving country music career and a superstar fiancé. Then she played one teenie tiny protest song at a concert and ruined her entire future, including her impending celebrity marriage. But five years later, she refuses to be done with her dreams and calls up the one person who stuck by her, her dear friend and her former fiancé’s co-writer and bandmate, Craig.

Craig Boseman’s held a torch for Lorelai for years, but even he knows the backup bass player never gets the girl. Things are different now, though. Craig owns his own indie record label and his songwriting career is taking off. If he can confront his past and embrace his gifts, he might just be able to help Lorelai earn the comeback she deserves—and maybe win her heart in the process.

But when the two reunite to rebuild her career and finally scratch that itch that’s been building between them for years, Lorelai realizes a lot about what friends don’t do. For one, friends don’t have scratch-that-itch sex. They also don’t almost-kiss on street corners, publish secret erotic poetry about each other, have counter-top sex, write songs for each other, have no-strings motorcycle sex, or go on dates. And they sure as heck don’t fall in love… right?

Erin Hahn’s FRIENDS DON’T FALL IN LOVE is about long-time friends, taking chances, and finding out that, sometimes, your perfect person was right there in your corner all along.

DEADLOCK: A THRILLER by James Byrne 
9781250879103 | 8/8/23

In this sequel to the highly praised THE GATEKEEPER, Dez Limerick, one of the best new thriller heroes, returns.

Desmond Aloysius Limerick (“Dez” to his friends and close personal enemies) is a man with a shadowy past, certain useful hard-won skills, and, if one digs deep enough, a reputation as a good man to have at your back. Now retired from his previous life, Dez is just a bloke with a winning smile, a bass guitar, and bullet wounds that paint a road map of past lives.

Raziah Swann calls him with an urgent request for help. Jaleh, her sister, has been attacked and seriously injured and hospitalized, just one day after her apartment was ransacked. She’s a business journalist who was working on a profile of an auditor who was himself mugged and killed. The firm he was auditing is Clockjack – a major multi-national technology company headquartered in Portland, Oregon. Fearing that there was more coming, she asks Dez to come to Portland.

Her worst fears were right – and the sisters were both attacked in the hospital by a trio of hired thugs, a trio who weren’t expecting to face Desmond Limerick. The two captured men (and one corpse) have now attracted the attention the U.S. Marshall’s, the D.E.A., as well as the Portland police, with the only thin thread that connects them leading straight back to Clockjack, a massive corporation with ties and resources that dwarf most nations. And only Dez stands in the way of whatever comes next.

PERFECT SHOT: A THRILLER by Steve Urszenyi
9781250879103 | 11/14/23

Special Agent Alexandra Martel has put her days on the battlefield behind her. Charming and disarming, relentless and lethal, she earned a reputation as one of the most renowned and decorated Army snipers in the service before stepping away. But when Alex, now an FBI special agent on loan to Interpol, learns that an old friend, an MI5 officer, has been killed under mysterious circumstances, she’s pulled back into the dangerous world she left behind: a world where some people fear her, some want to recruit her, and everyone seems to want her dead.

Following a trail of clues left behind by the dead woman, Alex pieces together a terrifying conspiracy that only escalates when a nuclear warhead goes missing. Dodging death at every turn, she reluctantly joins forces with a CIA agent, but he has plans of his own for her—and will stop at nothing to achieve them.

Chasing the truth through the streets of London and bustling Turkish markets to the underbelly of Paris, Alex is unrelenting in her pursuit of justice. But as the clock ticks down and the world edges closer to doom, she must fall back on her Special Ops skills to stop the unthinkable. She thought her life as a sniper was over—but with stakes this high, she must use whatever means necessary to render the world safe.

I AM AYAH: THE WAY HOME by Donna Hill
9781649371454 | 5/23/23

History and the present collide in this fascinating and poignant new novel from Essence bestselling author Donna Hill.

The Amistad counted fifty-three captives on the ship en route to Cuba, but there were actually fifty-four. Now, more than a century later, the descendant of the one escapee from that fateful ship, Ayah Fleming, must return to the home she fled if she ever hopes to reconcile the events of the past in order to claim a present that eludes her.

Ayah Fleming has built her career capturing moments, images in time and place, displaying them for the world to see—the good, bad, ugly, and beautiful. Yet she shields herself from that same world behind the safety of her camera lens—unwilling to see her own truth until time, fate, and Zach Renard make it impossible to look away.

Returning home to Sag Harbor was the last thing Ayah wanted to do, but she is powerless against the pull of the past that enters her present and shapes her future. Through a handful of uncovered letters and diary entries, Ayah uncovers the truth about her descendants. She must decide if Zach’s revelations and the shattering discoveries of her foremothers will propel her to continue to run from the arms of home and the love of Zach.

SCHRADER’S CHORD by Scott Leeds
9781250232076 | 8/5/23

HEART-SHAPED BOX meets THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE in this chilling debut about cursed vinyl records that open a gateway to the land of the dead.

I told you they were real.

After his estranged father’s mysterious death, Charlie Remick returns to Seattle to help with the funeral. There, he discovers his father left him two parting gifts: the keys to the family record store and a strange black case containing four ancient records that, according to legend, can open a gate to the land of the dead.

When Charlie, his sister, and their two friends play the records, they unwittingly open a floodgate of unspeakable horror. As the darkness descends, they are stalked by a relentless, malevolent force and see the dead everywhere they turn.

With time running out, the only person who can help them is Charlie’s resurrected father, who knows firsthand the awesome power the records have unleashed. But can they close the gate and silence Schrader’s Chord before it’s too late?