New Edelweiss E-galleys (11/1/2023)

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

A HUNGER TO KILL: A Serial Killer, a Determined Detective, and the Quest for a Confession that Changed a Small Town Forever by Kim Mager and Lisa Pulitzer
9781250274885 | 7/23/24

On September 13, 2016, in the small town of Ashland, Ohio, emergency dispatchers received a 911 call from a terrified woman who claimed to be kidnapped. The man holding her hostage was Shawn Grate, a serial killer whom the press later dubbed “The Ladykiller.” A key to his conviction and death sentence were Grate’s extensive recorded confessions—all extracted by one woman: Detective Kim Mager.

As an experienced specialist in sex offenses, Detective Mager was assigned to Grate’s case upon his arrest. Grate immediately latched onto her, refusing to speak to any other law enforcement officers, convinced that he could somehow exercise his power over her in much the same way that he’d overpowered and controlled his female victims.

He was wrong.

Over a period of eight days, Mager conducted one interview after another, risking her life by sitting alone in the interview room with a malevolent predator. Using brilliant psychological strategy in a lethal game of wits, Mager successfully elicited his damning confessions to five murders, kidnapping, and multiple sexual assaults of women across Ohio.

Deeply personal and shocking, A HUNGER TO KILL takes readers behind the scenes of one of the most appalling criminal cases in American history from the woman who stopped his murderous rampage in collaboration with New York Times bestselling author Lisa Pulitzer.

HOUSE OF GLASS by Sarah Pekkanen
9781250283993 | 8/6/24

The past and the present collide in the most unexpected ways in #1 New York Times bestselling author Sarah Pekkanen’s latest thriller, THE HOUSE OF GLASS.

Rose Barclay is an 8-year-old girl who witnessed the death of her nanny—in the midst of her parents’ contentious divorce—and immediately fell into traumatic mutism. Stella Hudson is a Best Interest Attorney, appointed to serve as counsel for children in custody cases. She never accepts clients under 13 due to her own traumatic childhood, but Stella’s mentor, a revered judge, believes Stella is the only one who can help.

From the moment Stella passes through the iron security gate and steps into the gilded, sprawling D.C. home of the Barclays, she realizes the case is even more twisted, and the Barclay family far creepier, than she feared. And there’s something off about the house itself: its a plastic house, with not a single bit of glass to be found.

As Stella comes closer to uncovering the secrets the Barclays hold close, danger wraps around her like a shroud, and her past and present collide in ways she never expected. Everyone is a suspect in the nanny’s murder. The mother, the father, the grandmother, the nanny’s boyfriend. Even Rose. Is the person Stella’s supposed to protect the one she may need protection from? From bestselling thriller writer, Sarah Pekkanen, comes a new, riveting novel filled with buried secrets and page-turning twists.

CAN’T SPELL TREASON WITHOUT TEA by Rebecca Thorne
9781250333292 | 5/7/24

All Reyna and Kianthe want is to open a bookshop that serves tea. Worn wooden floors, plants on every table, firelight drifting between the rafters . . . all complemented by love and good company. Thing is, Reyna works as one of the Queen’s private guards, and Kianthe is the most powerful mage in existence. Leaving their lives isn’t so easy.

But after an assassin takes Reyna hostage, she decides she’s thoroughly done risking her life for a self-centered queen. Meanwhile, Kianthe has been waiting for a chance to flee responsibility—all the better that her girlfriend is on board. Together, they settle in Tawney, a town nestled in the icy tundra near dragon country, and open the shop of their dreams.

What follows is a cozy tale of mishaps, mysteries, and a murderous queen throwing the realm’s biggest temper tantrum. In a story brimming with hurt/comfort and quiet fireside conversations, these two women will discover just what they mean to each other . . . and the world.

A FATAL INHERITANCE: How a Family Misfortune Revealed a Deadly Medical Mystery by Lawrence Ingrassia
9781250837226 | 5/14/24

Ingrassia lost his mother, brother, two sisters, and nephew to cancer—different cancers developing at different points throughout their lives. And while highly unusual, his family is not the only one to wonder whether their suffering is the result of unbelievable bad luck, or if there might be another explanation.

Through meticulous research and riveting storytelling, Ingrassia takes us from the 1960s—when Dr. Frederick Pei Li and Dr. Joseph Fraumeni Jr. first met, not yet knowing that they would go on to make a groundbreaking discovery that would affect cancer patients for decades to come—to present day, as Ingrassia and countless others continue to unpack and build upon Li and Fraumeni’s initial discoveries, and to understand what this means for their families.

In the face of seemingly unbearable loss, Ingrassia holds onto hope. He urges us to fight like Charlie, his nephew who battled cancer his entire life starting with a rhabdomyosarcoma at the age of two—and to look toward the future, as gene sequencing, screening protocols, CRISPR gene editing, and other developing technologies may continue to extend lifespans and perhaps, one day, even offer cures.

THE WEDDING PEOPLE by Alison Espach
9781250899576 | 7/30/24

It’s a beautiful day in Newport, Rhode Island, when Phoebe Stone arrives at the grand Cornwall Inn wearing a green dress and gold heels, not a bag in sight, alone. She’s immediately mistaken by everyone in the lobby for one of the wedding people, but she’s actually the only guest at the Cornwall who isn’t here for the big event. Phoebe is here because she’s dreamt of coming for years—she hoped to shuck oysters and take sunset sails with her husband, only now she’s here without him. Meanwhile, the bride has accounted for every detail and every possible disaster the weekend might yield except for, well, Phoebe—which makes it that much more surprising when the women can’t stop confiding in each other.

In turns uproariously, absurdly funny and devastatingly tender, Alison Espach’s THE WEDDING PEOPLE is a look at the winding paths we can take to places we never imagined—and the chance encounters it sometimes takes to reroute us.

THE SINGER SISTERS by Sarah Seltzer
9781250907646 | 8/6/24

It’s 1996, and alt-rocker Emma Cantor is on tour, with her sights trained on a record deal. Emma’s got no lack of inspiration for her music—chiefly her mother Judie, a 1960s folk legend whose confessional songs made her an icon before her mysterious withdrawal from the public eye. Emma is baffled by Judie’s coldness, and is deeply shaken when she learns a long-kept secret about their family. When Emma uncovers more about her mother’s past, she is vaulted to new heights as a performer. But the knowledge she gains also propels her toward a musical betrayal that further fractures her relationship with Judie. Increasingly famous, but fragile and isolated, Emma grapples with her mother’s legacy and what it means for her own future.

With the richness of a beloved folk song, THE SINGER SISTERS moves between ’60s folk clubs and ’90s music festivals, chronicling the ups and downs of stardom while asking what women artists must sacrifice for success.

PEN PAL by J.T. Geissinger
9781250346681 | 7/2/24

The first letter arrived the day my husband was buried. It was postmarked from the state penitentiary, and contained a single sentence:

I’ll wait forever if I have to.

It was signed by Dante, a man I didn’t know.

Out of simple curiosity, I wrote back to ask him what exactly he was waiting for. His reply?

You.

I told the mystery man he had the wrong girl. He said he didn’t. I said we’d never met, but he said I was wrong.

We went back and forth, exchanging letters every week that grew increasingly more intimate. Then one day, the letters stopped. When I found out why, it was already too late.

Dante was at my doorstep.

CRAFT: Stories I wrote for the Devil by Ananda Lima
9781250292971 | 6/18/24

An intoxicating and surreal debut collection of contemporary, Kafkaesque stories all told through the lens of a Brazilian-American writer who spent a night with the devil
At a Halloween party in 1999, a writer slept with the devil. She sees him again and again throughout her life and she writes him stories about beautiful and impossible things.

CRAFT: STORIES I WROTE FOR THE DEVIL is an intoxicating and unsettling linked collection that lures readers into surreal pockets of the United States and Brazil where they’ll find bite-size Americans in vending machines and the ghosts of people who are not dead.

With a singular voice in the narrative-bending tradition of Kafka, Cortázar, and Bulgakov, Lima speaks to Brazilian-American immigrant experiences–of ambition, fear, heartbreak, and home–with equal parts warmth and agitation.

Strange, intimate, haunted, and hungry—CRAFT: STORIES I WROTE FOR THE DEVIL is a powerful experience: once read, you’re as much a part of the stories as they’re a part of you. The collection includes: “Rapture,” “Ghost Story,” “Tropicália,” “Antropógaga,” “Idle Hands,” “Rent,” “Porcelain,” “Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory,” and “Hasselblad.”

RULES FOR SECOND CHANCES by Maggie North
9781250910127 | 6/25/24

Brimming with heart and heat, RULES FOR SECOND CHANCES explores the hardest relationship question of all: can true love happen twice . . . with the same person?

Liz Lewis has tried everything to be what people want. But she’s always been labeled different from everyone else in the boisterous world of wilderness expeditions—that is, if anyone notices her at all. Her marriage to popular adventure guide Tobin Renner-Lewis is a sinkhole of toxic positivity where she’s the only one saying no. In a mountain resort town built around excitement, introverted Liz gets . . . spreadsheets.

When she gets mistaken for a server at her own thirtieth birthday party and her last line of communication with Tobin finally snaps, Liz vows to stop playing a minor character in her own life. The (incredibly well-researched and scientific) plan? A crash course in confidence . . . via improv comedy class.

The catch? She’s terrible at it, and the only person willing to practice with her is a certain extroverted wilderness guide who seems dead set on saving their marriage one bonkers improv scenario at a time. But as Liz and Tobin get closer ( . . . again), she’s forced to confront all the reasons they didn’t work the first time, along with her growing suspicion that there might be more to her social awkwardness than anyone realized. Liz has just eight weeks to learn improv’s most important lesson—”yes, and”—or she’ll have to choose between the love she always wanted and the dreams that got away.

MASQUERADE by O.O. Sangoyomi
9781250904294 | 8/2/24

Òdòdó’s hometown of Timbuktu has been conquered by the the warrior king of Yorùbáland. Already shunned as social pariahs, living conditions for Òdòdó and the other women in her blacksmith guild grow even worse under Yorùbá rule.

Then Òdòdó is abducted. She is whisked across the Sahara to the capital city of ?àngót?`, where she is shocked to discover that her kidnapper is none other than the vagrant who had visited her guild just days prior. But now that he is swathed in riches rather than rags, Òdòdó realizes he is not a vagrant at all; he is the warrior king, and he has chosen her to be his wife.

In a sudden change of fortune, Òdòdó soars to the very heights of society. But after a lifetime of subjugation, the power that saturates this world of battle and political savvy becomes too enticing to resist. As tensions with rival states grow, revealing elaborate schemes and enemies hidden in plain sight, Òdòdó must defy the cruel king she has been forced to wed by re-forging the shaky loyalties of the court in her favor, or risk losing everything—including her life.

Loosely based on the myth of Persephone, O.O. Sangoyomi’s MASQUERADE takes you on a journey of epic power struggles and political intrigue that turn an entire region on its head.

THE MARS HOUSE by Natasha Pulley
9781639732333 | 3/19/24

In the wake of an environmental catastrophe, January, once a principal in London’s Royal Ballet, has become a refugee in Tharsis, the terraformed colony on Mars. There, January’s life is dictated by his status as an Earthstronger—a person whose body is not adjusted to lower gravity and so poses a danger to those born on, or naturalized to, Mars. January’s job choices, housing, and even transportation are dictated by this second-class status, and now a xenophobic politician named Aubrey Gale is running on a platform that would make it all worse: Gale wants all Earthstrongers to naturalize, a process that is always disabling and sometimes deadly.

When Gale chooses January for an on-the-spot press junket interview that goes horribly awry, January’s life is thrown into chaos, but Gale’s political fortunes are damaged, too. Gale proposes a solution to both their problems: a five year made-for-the-press marriage that would secure January’s future without naturalization and ensure Gale’s political success. But when January accepts the offer, he discovers that Gale is not at all like they appear in the press. They’re kind, compassionate, and much more difficult to hate than January would prefer. As their romantic relationship develops, the political situation worsens, and January discovers Gale has an enemy, someone willing to destroy all of Tharsis to make them pay—and January may be the only person standing in the way.

Un-put-downably immersive and utterly timely, Natasha Pulley’s new novel is a gripping story about privilege, strength, and life across class divisions, perfect for readers of Sarah Gailey and Tamsyn Muir.