Practice Makes Perfect
After hundreds of rejections, Jeneva Rose published her psychological thriller, The Perfect Marriage, with British indie Bloodhound Books in 2020. The promotional video Rose posted to TikTok in 2021 went viral, and in 2024, Blackstone re-released the book in the U.S.; together, the Bloodhound and Blackstone editions have sold 942K print copies. After several successsful, unrelated titles, a sequel, The Perfect Divorce, debuts at #1 on our hardcover nonfiction list.
Read Me
Tahereh Mafi launched the Shatter Me series with the 2011 novel of the same name. Over the next decade, her YA dystopian universe grew to encompass six novels and five novellas chronicling a rebellion against a worldwide totalitarian government called the Reestablishment. Now, four years after the publication of series capper Believe Me, Mafi begins a spin-off series with Watch Me, which lands at #2 on our children’s fiction list. Mafi told PW that she was inspired to return to the Shatter Me saga as she watched the real world grow more dystopian. “It was a balm to escape into something familiar,” she said. “I had the authority to try and reassemble a bit of humanity on the page.”
Into the Sunset
Lyla Sage rides high atop our trade paperback list with Wild and Wrangled. Austin Drake’s art for Sage’s Rebel Blue Ranch series has heralded a wave of illustrated western covers; PW delves into the new look of romance publishing in the May 12 issue.
Imitation of Life
It’s old home week across the bestseller pages: #8 on our children’s fiction list, My Return to the Walter Boys, is the sequel to Ali Novak’s 2014 debut, My Life with the Walter Boys. Novak got her start on Wattpad, where she began posting at age 15, and a partnership between the platform and Sourcebooks brought the first Walter Boys book to print. It’s set just after 16-year-old Jackie’s family dies in a car accident and she’s sent from New York City to live with her mother’s close friend in Colorado, on a ranch whose household includes 11 boys and one unfriendly sister. The book has sold 160K print copies and in 2024 was adapted as a Netflix series; season two is slated for later this year.
