New Edelweiss E-galleys (10/7/2024)

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

AUSTIN AT SEA by Natalie Jenner
9781250349590 | 5/6/25

In Boston, 1865, Charlotte and Henrietta Stevenson, daughters of a Massachusetts Supreme Court Justice, have accomplished as much as women are allowed in those days. Chafing against those restrictions and devoted to the works of Jane Austen, they start a secret correspondence with Sir Francis Austen, her last surviving brother, now in his nineties. He sends them an original letter from his sister and invites them to come visit him in England.

In Philadelphia, Nicholas & Haslett Nelson—brothers, veterans of the recent Civil War, and rare book dealers, are also in correspondence with Sir Francis Austen. Bachelors both, they two are invited to visit Sir Francis in England, with the promise of a never-before-seen, rare Austen artifact to be evaluated.

The Stevenson sisters sneak away without a chaperone to sail to England. On their ship are Nelson brothers, writer Louisa May Alcott, Sara-Beth Gleason—wealthy daughter of state senator with her eye on the Nelson brothers, and a would-be last-minute chaperone to the Stevenson sisters, Justice Thomas Nash.

It’s a voyage and trip that transforms each of their lives in ways that are unforeseen, with the transformative spirit of the love of literature and that of Jane Austen herself.

HOW TO DODGE A CANNONBALL by Dennard Dayle
9781250345677 | 6/17/25

HOW TO DODGE A CANNONBALL is a razor-sharp and bitterly hilarious Civil War satire about American racism. It tells the story of a friendless, fatherless, and guileless white teenager named Anders who volunteers for the Union army as a flag-twirler to escape his abusive mother. In desperate acts of self-preservation, he defects—twice—before joining a Black regiment at Gettysburg, claiming to be an octoroon.

In his new and entirely incredulous regiment, Anders becomes entangled with questionable military men and an arms dealer working for both sides. But more importantly he forms an awkward bond with the other men in the regiment, finding a family he desperately needs and gaining an intimate understanding of the lives of Black people. After deploying to New York City to suppress the draft riots and to Nevada to suppress Native Americans, Anders begins to see the war through the eyes of his newfound brothers, comprehending it not so much as a fight for Black liberation but as a negotiation among white people over which kinds of oppression will be acceptable in the re-United States.

THE OTHER SIDE OF NOW by Paige Harbison
9781250358073 | 6/3/25

With a leading role on a hit TV show and a relationship with Hollywood’s latest heartthrob, Meg Bryan appears to have everything she ever wanted. But underneath the layers of makeup and hairspray, her happiness is as fake as her stage name, Lana Lord. Following a breakdown at her birthday party, she books an impromptu trip to Ireland. Specifically, the village where she and her best friend Aimee always dreamt of moving—a dream that fell apart when an accident claimed Aimee’s life a decade ago.

When Meg arrives, the people in town treat her not as a stranger, but a friend (except for the hot bartender). Meg writes it all off as jetlag until she looks in the mirror. Her hair is no longer bleached, her skin has a few natural fine lines, and her nose looks like . . . well, her old nose. Her real nose.

Eventually, she comes to accept that she somehow made a quantum slide into an alternate version of her life. But the most shocking realization of all? In this life, her best friend Aimee is alive–but wants nothing to do with Meg.

SHAW CONNOLLY LIVES TO TELL by Gillian French
9781250358516 | 6/17/25

Shaw Connolly is no stranger to trauma. As a fingerprints analyst, she’s one of the first on-site for crimes, including murder scenes and a mysterious string of arsons popping up throughout the rural Maine community her department serves. But the tragedy of her little sister’s disappearance sixteen years ago has always weighed on her the most; Thea is never far from her thoughts or dreams, and Shaw knows that her obsession with finding the truth about Thea is driving her husband away and impacting her two boys. But she can’t let it go, and has even started taking disturbing calls from a man named Anders Jansen who all but claims to have committed the crime.

Anders taunts Shaw with hints and innuendo about what supposedly happened all those years ago. But his calls go to the next level as he reveals just how much he knows about Shaw’s personal life, like her stalled career and ruined marriage. As his stalking escalates to threats on her and her family’s lives, he begins to show just how dangerous he might be. But Shaw is too desperate for answers to hang up now, just when she’s getting close to finding answers. The only question left is what she must lose to learn the truth.

THE HOUNDING by Xenobe Purvis
9781250366382 | 8/5/25

Even before the rumors about the Mansfield girls begin, Little Nettlebed is a village steeped in the uncanny, from strange creatures that wash up on the riverbed to portentous ravens gathering on the roofs of people about to die. But when the villagers start to hear barking, and when one claims to see the Mansfield sisters transform before his very eyes, the allegations spark fascination and fear like nothing has before.

The truth is that the inhabitants of Little Nettlebed have never much liked the Mansfield girls—a little odd, think some; a little high on themselves, perhaps—but they’ve always had plenty to say about them and, as the rotating perspectives of five of the villagers quickly make clear, now is no exception. Belief in witchcraft is waning but an aversion to difference is as widespread as ever, and these conflicting narratives all point to the same ultimate conclusion: something isn’t right in Little Nettlebed, and the sisters will be the ones to pay for it.

GREENWICH by Kate Broad
9781250363046 | 7/22/25

Summer, 1999. Rachel Fiske is almost eighteen when she arrives at her aunt and uncle’s mansion in Greenwich, Connecticut. Her glamorous aunt is struggling to heal from an injury, and Rachel wants to help—and escape her own troubles back home. But her aunt is oddly spacey and her uncle is consumed with business, and Rachel feels lonely and adrift, excluded from the world of adults and their secrets. The only bright spot is Claudia, a recent college graduate, aspiring artist, and the live-in babysitter for Rachel’s cousin. As summer deepens, Rachel eagerly hopes their friendship might grow into more.

But when a tragic accident occurs, the family turns on Claudia in a desperate bid to salvage their reputation. Caught between her upbringing and her feelings for Claudia, her desire to do the right thing and to protect her future, Rachel must make a pivotal choice. She’s the only one who knows what really happened—and her decision has consequences far beyond what she could have predicted.

SO HAPPY TOGETHER by Olivia Worley
9781250372307 | 6/3/25

Jane likes Colin. Jane likes Colin, very much. When he breaks off their slowly blooming relationship after five dates, Jane knows he was just too afraid of the intense feelings he has for her. She’ll get him back, she knows she will.

That is, until he starts dating Zoe—perfect, luminous, “we have pet nicknames for each other” Zoe. A quick stumbling block in the way of relationship bliss—even though she’s so nice, dammit—but Zoe doesn’t have what it takes to love Colin. She’d never stay with him through thick and thin. All Jane has to do is prove it, and they’ll be so happy together.

Then she sneaks into his apartment and makes a shocking discovery, one that will ensnare them all in a dark and complicated web of lies, secrets, and murder.

FLIRTY DANCING by Jennifer Moffatt
9781250379283 | 5/27/25

Archer Read is 27 and desperate to find his place in life. Five months ago, he quit his soul-destroying accounting job in Ohio and moved to Manhattan with dreams of making it on Broadway. And now he has nothing to show for it but a string of rejections. Even for a ray-of-sunshine like Archer, hope can only go so far. A musical revue at Shady Queens, a queer-friendly resort in the Catskills, is his last chance to break into show biz—otherwise, it’s back to Ohio, broke and hopeless. He arrives ready to dance his heart out, only to find he’ll be working with his teenage celebrity crush, the Broadway star Mateo Dixon.

What is Mateo doing working at Shady Queens? Besides barking orders and glaring at everyone . . . when he’s not absolutely smoldering at Archer on the dancefloor. As Archer tries to forget his teen crush and get to know the real Mateo, he’s caught up in a romance with his hot, temperamental bunkmate, Caleb. Between Mateo’s baggage and the dance crew’s drama—partying, flirting, breaking up, getting back together, then breaking up again—it’s no surprise when the show starts to fall apart. Archer quickly discovers that when it comes to dance, sometimes you can’t leave all your problems backstage.

PARTY OF LIARS by Kelsey Cox
9781250378811 | 7/1/25

Today is Sophie Matthews’ sixteenth birthday party, an exclusive black-tie bash in the heart of the Texas Hill Country, where secrets are as deep-rooted as the sprawling live oaks. Sophie’s dad has spared no expense, and his renovated cliffside mansion—once thought haunted, and shuttered for years from outsiders—is now open. It’s the event of the season and the champagne is set to flow all day. Then, just before the candles on the three-tiered red velvet cake are blown out, a body falls from the balcony onto the starlit dance floor below.

But, who is the victim, and who is the killer?

THE NIMBUS by Robert P. Baird
9781250392657 | 6/10/25

On an otherwise ordinary fall day on a university campus in Chicago, the toddler son of an ambitious divinity school professor named Adrian Bennett mysteriously starts to glow. The nimbus, as the strange, soft light comes to be known, offers no clues to its origin and frustrates every attempt at rational explanation.

Though the nimbus appears only intermittently, and not to everyone, the otherworldly glow quickly upends the lives of all those who encounter it, including Paul Harkin, Adrian’s broke and feckless graduate student, who likes being a graduate student a little too much for his own good; Renata Bennett, Adrian’s omnicompetent wife, who can’t see her son glowing even though the nimbus is turning her life upside down; and Warren Kayita, a down-on-his-luck librarian and aging div school alumnus on the run from a violent criminal. As news about the nimbus spreads around the university and beyond, Adrian, Paul, Renata, and Warren are set on a collision course that will threaten their lives and put their deepest convictions to the test.