House Rules

The #1 book in the country is House of Flame and Shadow, the third installment in romantasy author Sarah J. Maas’s Crescent City series. First-week print unit sales eclipsed those of its predecessors, including House of Sky and Breath, which is the top-selling among multiple Maas titles on this week’s trade paperback list. Flame and Shadow, meanwhile, sold more than 11 times as many copies as the #2 book in the country, also by Maas—A Court of Thorns and Roses.

Romantic Tomes

A trio of books on our nonfiction list offer sex and relationship advice, just in time for the Hallmark holiday but welcome any month of the year.

Our starred review called Julie Schwartz Gottman and John Gottman’s Fight Right a “persuasive and plainspoken guide” to conflict, which the Gottmans consider “vital to healthy relationships, yet few couples know how to engage in it meaningfully.” The authors, whose latest debuts at #5, are psychologists and the married cofounders of the Gottman Institute, an organization that studies marriage and relationships.

Sex educator Emily Nagoski lands two positions below with Come Together, “a valuable resource,” per our starred review, “for anyone looking to spruce up a subpar sex life or make a good one better.” And at #15, Secure Love by Julie Menanno, a licensed marriage and family therapist with 1.1 million followers on Instagram, advises readers on how to “create a relationship that will last a lifetime.”

In Clubland

Come and Get It by Such a Fun Age author Kiley Reid, the latest GMA Book Club pick, debuts at #10 on our hardcover fiction list. Our starred review said Reid’s “blistering send-up of academia is interlaced with piercing moral clarity,” and in a prepub interview with PW, the author discussed her nuanced view. “For the most part, I think people are trying,” she said. “Sometimes their attempts make them falter a lot, and I like to replicate that with my characters.”

The Read with Jenna selection, Dolly Alderton’s Good Material, lands at #11. Our review found that it didn’t live up to its title: “While the subversion of the typical love story intrigues, the unpalatable characters extinguish its charm.”

NEW & NOTABLE

FAR BEYOND GOLD
Sydney McLaughlin
#12 Hardcover Nonfiction
“U.S. Olympian McLaughlin debuts with a soaring testimony to the faith that helped her surmount anxiety, forge a new identity in God, and win gold” in Tokyo in 2021, according to our review. “Readers won’t need to be athletes to find inspiration here.”