New Edelweiss E-galleys (10/10/23)

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

EVERY TIME WE SAY GOODBYE by Natalie Jenner
9781250285188 | 5/14/2024

The bestselling author of THE JANE AUSTEN SOCIETY and BLOOMSBURY GIRLS returns with a brilliant novel of love and art, of grief and memory, of confronting the past and facing the future.

In 1955, Vivien Lowry is facing the greatest challenge of her life. Her latest play, the only female-authored play on the London stage that season, has opened in the West End to rapturous applause from the audience. The reviewers, however, are not as impressed as the playgoers and their savage notices not only shut down the play but ruin Lowry’s last chance for a dramatic career. With her future in London not looking bright, at the suggestion of her friend, Peggy Guggenheim, Vivien takes a job as a script doctor on a major film shooting in Rome’s Cinecitta Studios . There she finds a vibrant movie making scene filled with rising stars, acclaimed directors, and famous actors in a country that is torn between its past and its potentially bright future, between the liberation of the post-war cinema and the restrictions of the Catholic Church that permeates the very soul of Italy.

As Vivien tries to forge a new future for herself, she also must face the long-buried truth of the recent World War and the mystery of what really happened to her deceased fiancé. EVERY TIME WE SAY GOODBYE is a brilliant exploration of trauma and tragedy, hope and renewal, filled with dazzling characters both real and imaginary, from the incomparable author who charmed the world with her novels THE JANE AUSTEN SOCIETY and BLOOMSBURY GIRLS. 

THE BREAK-UP PACT by Emma Lord
9781250845306 | 8/13/2024

The heartfelt, sparkling romantic debut adult novel from the Reese’s Book Club fave & New York Times bestselling YA author.

June and Levi were best friends as teenagers—until the day they weren’t. Now June is struggling to make rent on her beachside tea shop, Levi is living a New York cliché as a disillusioned hedge fund manager and failed novelist, and they’ve barely spoken in years.

But after they both experience public, humiliating break-ups with their exes that spread like wildfire across TikTok rabbit holes and daytime talk shows alike, they accidentally make some juicy gossip of their own—a photo of them together has the internet convinced they’re a couple. With so many people rooting for them, they decide to put aside their rocky past and make a pact to fuel the fire. Pretending to date will help June’s shop get back on its feet and make Levi’s ex realize that she made a mistake. All they have to do is convince the world they’re in love, one swoon-worthy photo opp at a time.

Two viral break-ups. One fake relationship. Five sparkling, heart-pounding dates. June and Levi can definitely pull this off without their hearts getting involved. Because everyone knows fake dating doesn’t come with real feelings. Right?

DIAVOLA by Jennifer Thorne
9781250826121 | 3/26/2024

A dysfunctional family is haunted by a vengeful Italian ghost in this darkly funny vacation horror novel.

Anna has two rules for the annual Pace family destination vacations: Tread lightly and survive.

It isn’t easy when she’s the only one in the family who doesn’t quite fit in. Her twin brother, Benny, goes with the flow so much he’s practically dissolved, and her older sister, Nicole, is so used to everyone—including her blandly docile husband and two kids—falling in line that Anna often ends up in trouble for simply asking a question. Mom seizes every opportunity to question her life choices, and Dad, when not reminding everyone who paid for this vacation, just wants some peace and quiet.

The gorgeous, remote villa in tiny Monteperso seems like a perfect place to endure so much family togetherness, until things start going off the rails—the strange noises at night, the unsettling warnings from the local villagers, and the dark, violent past of the villa itself.

Jennifer Thorne skewers all-too-familiar family dynamics in this sly, wickedly funny vacation-Gothic. Beautifully unhinged and deeply satisfying, DIAVOLA is a sharp twist on the classic haunted house story, exploring loneliness, belonging, and the seemingly inescapable bonds of family mythology.

(Warning: May invoke feelings of irritation, dread, and despair that come with large family gatherings.)

TROUBLE IN QUEENSTOWN by Delia Pitts
9781250904218 | 7/16/2024

With TROUBLE IN QUEENSTOWN, Delia Pitts introduces private investigator Vandy Myrick in a powerful mystery that blends grief, class, race, and family with thrilling results.

Evander “Vandy” Myrick became a cop to fulfill her father’s expectations. After her world cratered, she became a private eye to satisfy her own. Now she’s back in Queenstown, New Jersey, her childhood home, in search of solace and recovery. It’s a small community of nine thousand souls crammed into twelve square miles, fenced by cornfields, warehouses, pharma labs, and tract housing. As a Black woman, privacy is hard to come by in “Q-Town,” and worth guarding.

For Vandy, that means working plenty of divorce cases. They’re nasty, lucrative, and fun in an unwholesome way. To keep the cash flowing and expand her local contacts, Vandy agrees to take on a new client, the mayor’s nephew, Leo Hannah. Leo wants Vandy to tail his wife to uncover evidence for a divorce suit.

At first the surveillance job seems routine, but Vandy soon realizes there’s trouble beneath the bland surface of the case when a racially charged murder with connections to the Hannah family rocks Q-Town. Fingers point. Clients appear. Opposition to the inquiry hardens. And Vandy’s sight lines begin to blur as her determination to uncover the truth deepens. She’s a minor league PI with few friends and no resources. Logic pegs her chances of solving the case between slim and hell no. But logic isn’t her strong suit. Vandy won’t back off.

LENNY MARKS GETS AWAY WITH MURDER by Kerryn Mayne
9781250340108 | 7/9/2024

Lenny Marks is never unprepared.

She spends her days teaching at the local elementary school and her nights watching reruns of Friends and playing Scrabble against an imaginary Monica Geller. She owns thirty-six copies of The Hobbit, arranged by height. Her wardrobe is limited to four colors (previously counted as three, but the distinction between charcoal and grey was impossible to ignore).

And Lenny Marks is very, very good at not remembering what happened the day her mother left her when she was still a child, and her stepfather went to prison. Until a letter from the parole board arrives in the mail–and when her desperate attempts to ignore it fail, Lenny starts to unravel.

Worse, she starts to remember…

Equal parts heartbreaking and heartwarming, Kerryn Mayne’s stunning debut is an irresistible novel about truth, secrets, vengeance, and family lost and found, with a heroine who’s simply unforgettable.

EMPIRE OF THE DAMNED by Jay Kristoff
9781250245335 | 3/12/2024

From the New York Times bestselling author of the NEVERNIGHT CHRONICLE, Jay Kristoff, comes the much-anticipated sequel to the #1 international bestselling sensation EMPIRE OF THE VAMPIRE.

From holy cup comes holy light;
The faithful hands sets world aright.
And in the Seven Martyrs’ sight,
Mere man shall end this endless night.

Gabriel de León has saved the Holy Grail from death, but his chance to end the endless night is lost. Drawn into an uneasy alliance with the mysterious vampire Liathe, Gabriel must now deliver the Grail to ancients of the Blood Esani, and learn the truth of how Daysdeath might be finally undone.

But the Last Silversaint faces peril, within and without. Pursued by terrors of the Blood Voss, drawn into warfare between the Blood Dyvok and duskdancers of the frozen Highlands, and ravaged by his own rising bloodlust, Gabriel may not survive to see the Grail learn her truth.

And that truth may be too awful for any to imagine.

THE HOUSEKEEPER’S SECRET by Iona Grey
9781250272621 | 8/13/2024

Coldwell Hall is the perfect place to hide.

Standing in the remote windswept moors of Northern England, it’s buried in the past and cut off from the outside world. The isolation gives Kate Furniss the chance she needs to make a fresh start. For the past five years, she has maintained her professional mask so carefully that she can almost believe she is the character she has created: Coldwell’s respectable housekeeper.

However, even Coldwell Hall cannot withstand the march of time. When change comes at the start of the hot summer of 1911, it brings an influx of new faces, both above and below stairs—including the handsome and mysterious new footman, Jem Arden. Just as Coldwell’s shuttered rooms are opened up, so Jem gradually unlocks Kate’s guarded heart, until they find themselves involved in a conflict of duty and desire, and a love affair that is as intense as it is forbidden.

But Jem has secrets of his own, and as the headiness of summer turns to the bitter cold of winter, Kate can feel her control slipping and she begins to question who she can trust in the house where she had previously found refuge.

Featuring alternating timelines—from the last sun-drenched summer of the Edwardian Age to the mud-filled trenches of WWI—Iona Grey’s riveting new novel explores the secrets we keep and how we find our way back to one another when it feels like everything is lost.

FINLAY DONOVAN ROLLS THE DICE by Elle Cosimano
9781250846006 | 3/5/2024

From New York Times bestseller and Edgar-Award nominee Elle Cosimano, comes FINLAY DONOVAN ROLLS THE DICE—the fiercely anticipated next installment in the beloved FINLAY DONOVAN series.

Finlay Donovan and her nanny/partner-in-crime Vero are in sore need of a girls’ weekend away. They plan a trip to Atlantic City, but odds are—seeing as it’s actually a cover story to negotiate a deal with a dangerous loan shark, save Vero’s childhood crush Javi, and hunt down a stolen car—it won’t be all fun and games. When Finlay’s ex-husband Steven and her mother insist on tagging along too, Finlay and Vero suddenly have a few too many meddlesome passengers along for the ride.

Within hours of arriving in their seedy casino hotel, it becomes clear their rescue mission is going to be a bust. Javi’s kidnapper, Marco, refuses to negotiate, demanding payment in full in exchange for Javi’s life. But that’s not all—he insists on knowing the whereabouts of his missing nephew, Ike, who mysteriously disappeared. Unable to confess what really happened to Ike, Finlay and Vero are forced to come up with a new plan: sleuth out the location of Javi and the Aston Martin, then steal them both back.

If Finlay can juggle a jealous ex-husband, two precocious kids, her mother’s marital issues, a decomposing loan shark, and find Vero’s missing boyfriend, she might get out of Atlantic City in one piece. But will she fold under the pressure and come clean about the things she’s done, or be forced to double down?

888 LOVE AND THE DIVINE BURDEN OF NUMBERS by Abraham Chang
9781250910783 | 5/7/2024

Young Wang has received plenty of wisdom from his beloved uncle: don’t take life too seriously, get out on the road when you can, and everyone gets just seven great loves in their life—so don’t blow it. This last one sticks with Young as he is an obsessive cataloger of his life: movies watched, favorite albums . . . all filtered through Chinese numerology and superstition. He finds meaning in almost everything, for which his two best friends endlessly tease him. But then, at the end of 1995, when Young is at New York University, he meets Erena. She’s brilliant, charismatic, quick-witted, and crassly funny. They fall in love and, for Young, it feels so real that he’s thrilled and terrified. As Young and Erena’s relationship blossoms, we get flashbacks to Young’s first five loves. That means Erena is “number six.” Was his uncle wrong—is she the one and only? Or are they fated for failure to make room for Young’s final, seventh love?

A love letter to Western pop culture, Eastern traditions, and being a first-generation New Yorker, Abraham Chang’s dazzling debut reminds us that luck only gets us so far when it comes to matters of the heart.

BLACK WOLF by Juan Gómez-Jurado
9781250853691 | 3/12/2024

Forensic genius Antonia Scott, and her partner/handler Jon Gutierrez, return in this sequel to the international bestselling sensation, RED QUEEN.

Antonia Scott has an unusually gifted mind, able to see what others miss, able to solve the crimes that baffle all others. The only thing she fears is herself.

Antonia is the lynchpin of the Red Queen project, created to work behind the scenes to solve the most devious and dangerous crimes. But she is unwilling to move past the last case, convinced it’s related to a personal tragedy, until a series of deadly events pulls her back in. In southern Spain, in the Costa del Sol, a key mafia figure is found brutally murdered in his villa, his pregnant wife, Lola Moreno, barely escapes an attempt to kill her in a shopping mall and is on the run. A shipping container from St. Petersburg arrives in port in Spain containing the corpses of nine woman, all who suffocated. Now Antonia, with the help of her helper and protector, Jon Gutierrez, must track down this missing Lola. But they aren’t the only ones on Lola’s trail – a dangerous contract killer, known as the Black Wolf, is also on her trail. And Antonia Scott, still plagued by her personal demons, must outwit, out-maneuver, and, ultimately, face this terrible, mysterious rival.