Meet Cute
Abby Jimenez’s latest romance, The Night We Met, is the #1 book in the country. “Jimenez puts a Cyrano de Bergerac twist on a friends-to-lovers relationship in this sparkling contemporary,” according to our starred review. “The palpable yearning and slow-burning sexual tension keep the pages flying.” Also swoonworthy: the matcha lavender cupcakes that Jimenez’s bake shop, Nadia Cakes, whipped up in honor of the book’s release.
Mission Accomplished
The tie-in edition of Andy Weir’s Project Hail Mary pubbed in December, well ahead of the movie’s March 20 release date. While the standard edition continues to outsell it—rising to #2 in the country this week—the tie-in edition is likewise enjoying its best weekly sales to date.
Above and Beyond
Ariel Sullivan debuted with 2025’s Conform, the first installment in a planned nine-book dystopian romance trilogy of trilogies. Her follow-up, Beneath, debuts at #5 on our hardcover fiction list and is a prequel set hundreds of years before the events of the first novel. Confused? Check out Sullivan’s website, where she encourages book clubs to reach out for virtual visits and has posted book club guides for the two titles to date. Each includes discussion questions, a playlist, and a brand-collab recipe—for Beneath, a “dark floral, layered pour, elegant & mysterious” cocktail, and for Conform, chocolate mousse. The postapocalypse has never been so tasty.
Hold Still
Several books on this week’s hardcover fiction list lend a bit of a gory vibe based on their titles alone—think Matt Dinniman’s The Butcher’s Masquerade, Sandra Brown’s Bloodlust, Sadie Kincaid’s Bound in Blood. Hiding in plain sight at #11 is Statues by contemporary horror mangaka Junji Ito. (Well, maybe not hiding, exactly, given the headless bodies and bloody sword on the cover.) Ito is considered a master of the modern horror comic, and Viz has released numerous hardcover editions of his work, including the Eisner winners Frankenstein, Remina, Venus in the Blind Spot, and Lovesickness. Fans of the subgenre are legion; to learn more, look for the horror manga feature in our April 27 issue.
