Game Time

The paperback reissue of Matt Dinniman’s litRPG series starter Dungeon Crawler Carl lands at #3 on our trade paperback list. In 2024 Ace bought print rights to the first six books in Dinniman’s originally self-published series—the SFF imprint’s first litRPG acquisition. (By the time Ace got involved, the six titles had already sold 800K copies across print, e-book, and audio.) The novel was named Books-A-Million’s inaugural Book of the Year and is being adapted into a TV series by Universal and Thor: Ragnarok screenwriter Chris Yost.

Netflix Hit Goes Golden

For the Fans! KPop Demon Hunters by Angela Song clinched the top spot on our picture book list. The Little Golden Book is one of two inaugural titles in Penguin Random House’s recently announced KPop Demon Hunters publishing program, launched in collaboration with Netflix, which streams the hit animated film. The collection—which spans the publisher’s Random House Children’s Books, Random House Worlds, and Penguin Young Readers divisions—will feature a range of “fan-forward” titles inspired by the world of the movie across a range of formats, including activity books, sticker books, and more, per PRH.

Let Her Cook

The eighth entry in culinary blogger Gina Homolka’s Skinnytaste cookbook series, Skinnytaste High Protein, cracks our hardcover nonfiction list, hitting #20. Weekly sales of the book—which collects 100 recipes with at least 30g of protein per serving—have remained steady since it pubbed on October 7, and its first-week sales of 28K just surpassed the previous book in the series, Skinnytaste Simple, which moved 27K copies in its first week. Homolka, who boasts more than 2.2 million Instagram followers, has sold more than 2.4 million books since launching the series in 2014 with The Skinnytaste Cookbook.

Sweet Dreams

The fourth and final entry in Sarah Adams’s Rome, Kentucky series, In Your Dreams, debuts at #2 on our trade paperback list. Our review said that the last installment “sends the series”—which features interconnected standalone romances set in the titular small town— “out on a high note.” The novel’s first-week sales of just under 21K copies beat out the previous three books in the series.

Flights of Fantasy

The inaugural novels in two new romantasy series made a splash this week, with Stacia Stark’s We Who Will Die and Sarah A. Parker’s To Bleed a Crystal Bloom respectively debuting at #7 on our hardcover fiction list and #16 on our extended trade paperback list. Stark’s Empire of Blood series is set in an ancient Rome–inspired world where human users of magic must battle vampires for power. The series opener is one of four romantasy special editions on our hardcover fiction list, joined by two titles in Callie Hart’s Fae & Alchemy series and Rebecca Yarros’s Fourth Wing. Meanwhile, Parker’s Crystal Bloom series, which the author self-published as a trilogy before Avon picked it up, reimagines the tale of “Rapunzel,” centering on a young woman raised in a castle whose world is threatened by dangerous monsters. Though not technically billed as a special edition, the To Bleed a Crystal Bloom paperback does feature sprayed edges.