New Edelweiss E-galleys (11/10/26)

Welcome to the cowboy colony planet, where men outnumber women ten to one and cattle outnumber them all . . .

In debt and on the run from a crime lord, Cherry takes the first ticket off-world: an all-expenses-paid, one-way trip to an isolated ranching outpost. The only catch? She has to marry an alien cowboy. Once she lands on her new home planet, Cherry needs to convince her groom to stay married to her instead of sending her packing after the thirty-day trial period.

Other than his eyes glowing bright white every time he looks at her, Cherry has no idea what’s going on inside her new husband’s head, or what secrets he’s keeping from her. The alien cowboy Silar is quiet and guarded, choosing to spend more time with his animals than her and going to offensively great lengths to avoid touching her. But the more time they spend stuck together on his ranch, Cherry realizes more than just her life is at risk if this marriage fails–her stupid human heart is, too.

Brimming with humor and alien charm, MARRIED TO THE ALIEN COWBOY is the first in a sweet and steamy alien cowboy romance series.

Turning sixty and finding herself single wasn’t part of Kit Caruso’s plan. But here she is, a San Diego-based single mother of three and recent empty nester in need of a hobby. Kit’s friend and next-door neighbor Rita (a former child star of “Annie” who thinks Andrea McArdle stole her chance at fame) dares her back into the dating world with the Silver Foxes app, where men seem to be only looking for “a nurse or a purse.” What follows is a parade of excruciating dates with men who are more red flag than romance.

After a few bizarre and hilarious encounters, Kit finally swipes right on Jonathan Smith: 64, George Clooney-gorgeous, and refreshingly financially independent. He dazzles Kit with his charm, kissable lips, and old-fashioned beliefs about courtship. She chooses not to be offended by his suggestions on how she can improve herself (hair, makeup, clothes, workouts), mainly because she’s seeing good results.

It’s all going swimmingly until Kit meets a friend of her ex-husband’s, a retired cop turned handyman who has moved to town with his much younger boyfriend, Brian. Tom is friendly, funny, and charming—and a pro at fixing things around the house—and Kit finds herself distracted by this man she knows she can never have. Or can she?

Refreshingly down-to-earth and brimming with warmth, Gelman’s quirky cast of family, neighbors, and friends will keep you turning the pages and have you laughing the whole way.

In 2010 New York City, runway model and former it girl Lila Gao is trying to cash in on her beauty before time and money run out. Her father’s sudden death has sent her reeling, and her once-enviable career has stalled. As one of the few biracial Asian American fashion models, Lila’s made a living off her unique appearance since the age of sixteen, but this kind of currency won’t last forever.

In order to make rent, Lila needs to stage a comeback, so she reemerges onto the VIP nightlife scene where her magnetic old flame works as a club promoter. Together they get entangled with a wealthy social climber who’s determined to insert herself into their exclusive circle, no matter the cost. As New York Fashion Week approaches, Lila lands the opportunity to walk in a major designer’s show, while reluctantly entertaining prospective suitors as her backup plan. But when a lavish night out spirals out of control, Lila is reminded that her coveted world can’t exist without someone’s downfall.

With the darkly glamorous, cutthroat world of high fashion and downtown nightlife transposed onto the grand scale of a new American Gilded Age, BOTTLE TRAIN is an opulent cracked mirror held up to New York’s postrecession years of decadence, excess, and inequality.

On the surface, Lara and Dom are thriving: She runs Thyme Square, a buzzy Berkeley restaurant, where she serves food inspired by her beloved late aunt’s Lebanese cooking; he has just finished writing another novel—one that his agent assures him will be a success—and is excited to start growing their family.

Beneath the facade, however, the couple is adrift. On the cusp of Thyme Square’s big break, Lara is still longing for her mother’s blessing of her career path, while the older woman refuses to set foot in Thyme Square for reasons she won’t reveal. And as Dom’s novel fails to gain traction with publishers, his credit card debt mounts ever higher and his sense of self-worth plummets. Dom begins pulling away, isolating himself rather than seeking support from his wife. Lara ignores her mother’s disapproval and the fissures in her marriage by throwing herself into her work, milking solace from her aunt’s well-worn recipe book and the routines of the kitchen. When Lara gets the opportunity to expand her restaurant to the Middle East, the couple is at a crossroads, unsure whether they have what it takes to find their way back to each other.

BREADWINNER is an evocative portrayal of a married couple at a critical juncture in figuring out not only where they each came from but who they want to become. Sara Hamdan serves us an unforgettable family drama, set in kitchens from California to Lebanon, that is sure to break hearts and warm them in equal measure.

On May 13, 1981, a Turkish man named Mehmet Ali Agca shot and seriously wounded Pope John Paul II in the heart of Vatican City. Agca was put on trial and served nineteen years in an Italian prison before his return to Turkey, where he lives to this day. Why did the shooting in Saint Peter’s Square take place, and how did it shape the turbulence of the late Cold War?

In KILLING THE POPE, written with the momentum of a fast-paced thriller and the rigor of the best scholarship, the master historian Serhii Plokhy revisits the era and one of its defining mysteries. He traces Agca’s membership in the right-wing terrorist group known as the Gray Wolves, his assassination of a liberal journalist and escape from a Turkish prison, and his grandiose rhetoric about the dangers of the Church and imperialism to Turkey’s national honor. Agca’s story intersects with many others, however, as the newly installed pope visits his native Poland and becomes an anti-communist icon, and the Gray Wolves’ ties to organized crime prompt widespread allegations of a Soviet-Bulgarian conspiracy to eliminate John Paul.

As Agca’s trial proceeds, it becomes a bizarre but consequential Cold War theater, with both Washington and Moscow spreading disinformation, and a beloved pontiff and voluble, enigmatic would-be killer at its center. Drawing on pathbreaking research in far-flung archives, Plokhy’s absorbing narrative dispels myths and offers the most meticulous account to date of a violent act that shook the world.

When June hooks up with Cora, her former stall neighbor at the farmers’ market where she sells flowers, she makes it clear it’s a one-time thing. June has never quite understood romance and doesn’t want to accidentally break someone’s heart. Cora spent market season drooling over June, so she agrees, though as a hopeless romantic, she wishes it was the start of a happily ever after. Together, they have an unforgettable night, one so good, June almost breaks her rule–until they realize they’ll be working the same wedding.

What was supposed to be a one-night stand turns into a growing friendship. As Cora’s now very good friend, June is dead set on helping her in any way she can. So while June helps Cora with the administrative side of her bakery, in return, Cora goes to open houses with June so she doesn’t have to make small talk with realtors. As they grow closer, Cora tries to control her crush, but it can’t help but escalate. And June is starting to think she might have feelings for Cora after all.

But can June give Cora the happily ever after she deserves? And will Cora realize she’s worthy of the love she wants?

Meryl Wilsner’s FLOUR GIRL is a celebration of queer joy and community, and the kind of happily ever after that June and Cora never would’ve expected, but it’s theirs, so it’s perfect.

Death is full of new beginnings . . .

Collette Marchand never wanted to return home to the Immortal Wards of New Orleans, let alone inherit her mother’s blood-soaked business. Collette left magic and a great love behind a decade ago, hiding herself away in Boston. But now, her mother, Lady Red, the living Conjure Saint and matriarch of the most notorious Conjure House, has died for the final time.

Back in New Orleans, Téo Baptiste is stuck. He’s working at the same hospital where, ten years ago, he lost everything – his sobriety and the love of his life, Collette. Nights at the busiest ER in the city help him bury his feelings and ignore his magical destiny to take over the undead, Shadow Immortal Ward. But Lady Red’s death might be his chance to make things right with Collette again, and build a new future for himself.

When Collette is summoned back home to bury her mother, she uncovers Lady Red’s greatest secret: the true source of her power is a stolen card from the Deck of Life. A card that, along with the family business, passes to Collette. Determined to rewrite the past, Collette needs help from the man who shattered her heart, Téo. Will Collette become the next Lady Red and rule over all the Immortal Wards of New Orleans and beyond? Or is her true destiny a second chance at love?

Addie Mitchell has put her dreams on hold. To even her own surprise, she took a job working for her former middle-school bully, January Knox—now one of Texas’s biggest internet stars. January is demanding, her manager-slash-mother is terrifying, and it’s a total detour from Addie’s life plan. But the payoff will be worth it, if she can survive.

Then January gets an email from Denton Hayes, long-lost school heartthrob from their hometown, who’s now a PhD studying penguins in Antarctica. January tells Addie to delete it. Instead, Addie writes back . . . as January.

Soon, one email becomes dozens, and Denton and Addie are sharing everything from really interesting bird facts to their deepest worries and hopes. Somewhere along the way, Addie starts losing her heart.

Just one tiny problem: Denton thinks he’s writing to January. With Denton thousands of miles away, Addie keeps pretending the truth doesn’t matter. Until he shows up in Texas looking for the woman he fell for.

Can love built on a lie become true? Or will Denton learn the facts and fly the coop? Brimming with Katherine Center’s signature wisdom and banter, THE LOVEBIRDS is an irresistible romantic comedy about taking heart, looking close, and all the ways love can set you free.

Theodora Klaven is thirteen when her older brother Josh disappears. He’s long threatened to run away, and one night, while they’re out drinking in the woods, he hops on a late-night train to Manhattan and leaves her behind. Her family shattered, Thea is left holding onto her incomplete memories of that night, still hoping for an answer.

Now twenty-six, Thea is a rising art gallerist in New York with a steady fiancé and a coveted promotion within reach. Then Marin–Josh’s old girlfriend and the last person to see him–walks into the gallery. She’s older, sharper, and just as compelling, with a photography portfolio Thea can’t ignore, and a shared history that tugs at an unhealed seam.

Thea throws her support behind Marin’s work, convinced she’s found the breakout artist she’s been looking for. But she also suspects that Marin knows more about the night of Josh’s disappearance than she lets on. As their relationship intensifies, Thea’s carefully constructed life begins to unravel. When a catastrophic revelation forces her to question everything she thought she knew about her brother, she must decide what she wants from the past—and what kind of future she still has the power to choose.

What if you had to relive the day of your murder over and over?

Opening on one ordinary morning in 1974, junior doctor Heidi Quick awakens from a quick nap to find herself rushing about her day on a busy hospital ward. When a snowstorm closes in, she accepts a ride home from her senior colleague Dr Fred Preston, only for her night to turn shockingly fatal when Preston murders her in her apartment. Even more shocking is when Heidi wakes and relives that day again.

Heidi becomes locked in a time loop—one that resets not with the sunrise, but with her death. Each time she dies, she wakes again in 1974, memories intact, and haunted by a single unchanging truth: someone she trusts wants her dead. But that someone is a respected colleague, Fred Preston, whose charm and authority mask a darkness rooted in a real-life UK serial killer case.

The repercussions of this reverberate through the following years as Heidi relives versions of her life—sometimes days, sometimes decades—as well as versions of her murder. Soon, Heidi realizes that due to a twist of time and fate, she has a singular chance to both work out why she is being murdered and also determine how she can save future victims and lead a meaningful life. With each iteration, the lines between destiny and choice, victim and perpetrator, past and future blur, as Heidi tries to stop Preston once and for all.