TikTok Boom
As BookScan analyst Kristen McLean told PW in August, BookTok sales may be softening, but it remains the industry’s most important platform for discovering new writers. The #2 book in the country, the romantasy Assistant to the Villain, began as a series of skits on author Hannah Nicole Maehrer’s TikTok. Her tropey, grumpy/sunshine workplace romance is set in an enchanted kingdom terrorized by a dark figure known as the Villain—aka the love interest. BookTok fave Freida McFadden has the #6 book in the country with The Coworker. Her breakthrough 2022 thriller, The Housemaid, is #8 in the country, up from #12 last week, and The Housemaid’s Secret, which pubbed in July, is holding steady on our trade paperback list at #11.
Four Score
New YA releases include the fourth entries in two popular series. The #1 book in the country, The Brothers Hawthorne by Jennifer Lynn Barnes, is the latest in the twisty mystery series she began with the eponymous 2020 title The Inheri tance Games . The books have sold a combined 1.3 million print copies. At #4 on our children’s fiction list, Reign continues Katharine McGee’s alt-historical American Royals romance series, which reimagines a United States in which George Washington was crowned king rather than becoming the country’s first elected president.
Back to Basics
Our Savory Life blogger Bri McKoy debuted in 2017 with Come and Eat, which our review called “an ode to food and spiritual community.” She returns with The Cook’s Book, #15 on our hardcover nonfiction list. Aimed at a general readership of newbies, it’s an “indispensable guide to kitchen fundamentals,” according to our starred review: “In a conversational tone, [McCoy] breaks down common techniques into easy-to-follow lessons that are paired with classic recipes: after learning how to deglaze sauté pans and thicken sauces, for example, readers will be well on their way to recreating McKoy’s extra-creamy chicken piccata.”
NEW & NOTABLE
THE BREAKAWAY
Jennifer Weiner
#3 Hardcover Fiction
“Weiner’s charming latest follows a cyclist as she contemplates her life during an Upstate New York bike tour,” according to our review. “Lively banter reels the reader in, as do the fine-grained details from the trail,” in a “breezy outing [that] goes down easy.”
THE GIRL IN THE EAGLE'S TALONS
Karin Smirnoff
#7 Hardcover Fiction
Smirnoff is the third author to take on the Millennium series. She adds “new maturity and depth to the two leads,” our review said of her depictions of Lisbeth Salander and Mikael Blomkvist, “offers several jaw-dropping plot twists, and draws clever—if occasionally implausible—connections between disparate characters.”
