New Edelweiss E-galleys (7/24/23)

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

A JEWISH GIRL IN PARIS by Melanie Levensohn
9781529075731 | 1/23/24

Paris, 1940: The City of Lights is under German occupation. Christian, son of a bank director, falls in love with Jewish girl Judith. The young couple secretly plan to flee, but suddenly Judith disappears. Christian begins a frantic search.

Montreal, 1982: Shortly before his death, Lica Grunberg confesses to his daughter, Jacobina, that she has an older half-sister, Judith. Lica escaped the Nazis but lost all contact with his first-born daughter. Jacobina must promise her father to find the sister she never knew . But the search languishes for twenty-five years, until Jacobina is spurred on by her much-younger friend Béatrice, a French diplomat experiencing a painful midlife crisis.

At the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., they meet Grégoire. Not only does he make Béatrice’s head turn, he also finds clues to Judith’s w hereabouts. Soon the two women discover a dark family secret, stretching over two continents and six decades. It will change their lives forever.

ONCE A MONSTER: A REIMAGINING OF THE LEGEND OF THE MINOTAUR by Robert Dinsdale
9781529097375 | 2/13/24

London, 1861: Ten-year-old Nell belongs to a crew of mudlarks who work a stretch of the Thames along the Ratcliffe Highway. An orphan since her mother died, leaving Nell with only broken dreams and a pair of satin slippers in her possession, she spends her days dredging up coals, copper and pieces of iron spilled by the river barges – searching for treasure in the mud in order to appease her master, Benjamin Murdstone.

But one day, Nell discovers a body on the shore. It’s not the first corpse she’s encountered, but by far the strangest. Nearly seven feet tall, the creature has matted hair covering his legs, and on his head are the suggestion of horns. Nell’s fellow mudlarks urge her to steal his boots and rifle his pockets, but as she ventures closer the figure draws breath and Nell is forced to make a decision which will change her life forever . . .

TRADING PLACES by Emily Duvall
9781649373953 | 9/26/23

To outsiders, socialite heiress Lexi North’s life is perfect.

But between yacht parties and shopping sprees, she craves meaning. When her on/off boyfriend breaks it off for good, her world falls apart – and then she accidentally rear-ends Evan Bailey, a ponytail-sporting, heavy metal-loving mechanic.

Evan thinks Lexi is rude and a total snob. He only offers to tow her car because she’s overpaying. But when Lexi picks her car up the next day, his niece films them arguing, challenging them to swap lives. The video goes viral, reaching Lexi’s real estate mogul father, who wants her to prove she can be responsible – by living a regular person’s life. Evan’s. For two months they’ll switch houses, jobs, budgets, everything. And if Lexi gives up early? Her trust fund’s gone. Forever. If Evan plays along until the end, he’ll give him the $100,000 his struggling car repair shop needs to stay open. The bet is on.

It doesn’t help that Lexi and Evan enrage each other as much as they want to rip each other’s clothes off. They only have to survive the summer. Living in each other’s worlds. Without falling in love. No big deal.

RANDOM IN DEATH: AN EVE DALLAS NOVEL by J. D. Robb
9781250289544 | 1/23/24

Jenna’s parents had finally given in, and there she was, at a New York club with her best friends, watching the legendary band Avenue A, carrying her demo in hopes of slipping it to the guitarist, Jake Kincade. Then, from the stage, Jake catches her eye, and smiles. It’s the best night of her life.

It’s the last night of her life.

Minutes later, Jake’s in the alley getting some fresh air, and the girl from the dance floor comes stumbling out, sick and confused and deathly pale. He tries to help, but it’s no use. He doesn’t know that someone in the crowd has jabbed her with a needle—and when his girlfriend Nadine arrives, she knows the only thing left to do for the girl is call her friend, Lieutenant Eve Dallas.

After everyone on the scene is interviewed, lab results show a toxic mix of substances in the victim’s body—and for an extra touch of viciousness, the needle was teeming with infectious agents. Dallas searches for a pattern: Had any boys been harassing Jenna? Was she engaging in risky behavior or caught up in something shady? But there are no obvious clues why this levelheaded sixteen-year-old, passionate about her music, would be targeted.

And that worries Dallas. Because if Jenna wasn’t targeted, if she was just the random, unlucky victim of a madman consumed by hatred, there are likely more deaths to come.

EXTINCTION by Douglas Preston
9780765317704 | 4/23/24

Erebus Resort, occupying a magnificent, hundred-thousand acre valley deep in the Colorado Rockies, offers guests the experience of viewing woolly mammoths, Irish Elk, and giant ground sloths in their native habitat, brought back from extinction through the magic of genetic manipulation. When a billionaire’s son and his new wife are kidnapped and murdered in the Erebus back country by what is assumed to be a gang of eco-terrorists, Colorado Bureau of Investigation Agent Frances Cash partners with county sheriff James Colcord to track down the perpetrators.

As killings mount and the valley is evacuated, Cash and Colcord must confront an ancient, intelligent, and malevolent presence at Erebus, bent not on resurrection—but extinction.

NOT YOUR CRUSH’S CAULDRON by April Asher
9781250808035 | 2/13/24

Olive Maxwell much prefers teaching about the supernatural world to taking part in it and leaves the magical shenanigans to her two sisters—the Prima-Apparent and Bounty Hunter-In-Training. But after assigning her college students a project designed to nudge them outside their comfort zones, Olive realizes that she’s never once stepped a toe over her own…and it’s about time that changed. Her first trip into the unknown? Moving in with her long-time crush—and friend…tattooed, motorcycle-riding, and pleasantly pierced, Baxter Donovan.

Bax Donovan, Guardian Angel not-so-extraordinaire, has acquired so many black marks on his record it looked like a scantron sheet. He’s given one last chance to keep his Guardian wings intact, a high-profile Assignment he knows all too well. Olive is usually as low-risk as it got. Hell, she wrote the safety manual. But something landed her on the Guardian Affairs radar and his guess was it had something to do with the heart-pounding stunts she’s determined to check off her Dare I Docket list.

Keeping Olive out of trouble is about to be his toughest assignment yet, and not because he’s forced to shake the dust off his feathers and embrace his inner aerialist. He’s at real risk of shattering the only Guardian Angel Code of Conduct Rule he’s yet to break: Don’t fall in love with your Assignment. And he isn’t so sure that’s a bad thing.

If love didn’t play by the rules, why should they?

THE TUSKS OF EXTINCTION by Ray Nayler
9781250855527 | 1/16/24

Moscow has resurrected the mammoth, but someone must teach them how to be mammoths, or they are doomed to die out, again.

The late Dr. Damira Khismatullina, the world’s foremost expert in elephant behavior, is called in to help. While she was murdered a year ago, her digitized consciousness is uploaded into the brain of a mammoth.

Can she help the magnificent creatures fend off poachers long enough for their species to take hold?

And will she ever discover the real reason they were brought back?

NOTHING BUT THE BONES by Brian Panowich
9781250835246 | 4/16/24

In McFalls County, local crime boss Gareth Burroughs runs everything on the mountain. And Nelson “Nails” McKenna has been his enforcer since he was a teenager, though his heart’s not really in the dirty work. Then one night in a local roadhouse, Nails goes too far, defending a woman, and even Burroughs’s reach can’t get him out of this one. With a dead body and countless witnesses, Nails and the woman become fugitives on the run, and unlikely partners.

But on the road to Jacksonville, where a possible escape awaits, there’s more than one interested party on the pair’s trail, and the glimpse they had of getting away scot free suddenly seems elusive. In the end, Nails must make one final stand for his freedom—or pay with both of their lives.

YOUR SHADOW HALF REMAINS by Sunny Moraine
9781250892201 | 2/6/24

Riley has not seen a single human face in longer than she can reckon. No faces, no eyes. Not if you want to survive.

But when a new neighbor moves in down the road, Riley’s overwhelming need for human contact makes her throw caution to the wind. Somehow, in this world where other people can mean a gruesome, bloody death, Ellis makes her feel safe. As they grow closer, Riley’s grip on reality begins to slip and she can no longer fight her deepest desires.

All Riley wants to do is look.

EVERYONE WHO CAN FORGIVE ME IS DEAD by Jenny Hollander
9781250890849 | 2/6/24

Nine years ago, with the world’s eyes on her, Charlie Colbert fled. The press and the police called her a “witness” to the nightmarish events at her elite graduate school—though Charlie knows she was much more than that—but, eventually, they left her alone. Now, Charlie has meticulously rebuilt her life: She’s the editor-in-chief of a major magazine, the fiancée of the heir of a publishing dynasty, and hell-bent on never, ever letting her guard down again. But when a buzzy movie about the events of that night threatens to shatter everything she’s worked for, Charlie realizes how much she’s changed in nine years. Now, she’s not going to let anything get in her way.

But Charlie shouldn’t have let her guard down. Suddenly, “Scarlet Christmas“—named for the bloody scene paramedics stumbled across on Christmas Eve at the prestigious Carroll University—is being adapted for film, with Charlie’s classmates promising the public that this time, they’ll get to find out what really happened. With everything at stake, Charlie must decide how far she’ll go to stop the past that haunts her from colliding with her shiny present.