Theme Building
With The Astral Library, #2 on our hardcover fiction list, historical novelist Kate Quinn “turns her hand to magical realism,” according to our review of “this charming tale about the joy of reading and the necessity of public libraries.” Five notches below, Agnes Aubert’s Mystical Cat Shelter by Heather Fawcett is a “charming 1920s-set cozy fantasy,” per our review, in which “the mundane challenges and rewards of running a cat shelter intersect with illicit magic.” Felines, books... just add tea and we’ve hit the comfort-lit trifecta.
Believe in Magic
The YA romantasy The Sun and the Starmaker takes the #8 spot on our children’s fiction list. Author Rachel Griffin “weaves a stunning fairy tale about love, commitment, and grief, expertly intertwining relatable growing pains of young adulthood with mythological burdens of epic proportions,” per our starred review. In a prepub interview with PW, Griffin discussed a common motif in her books: young women with magical powers. “A main character coming into their magic is such an interesting framework,” she said. “It makes them confront their beliefs or disbelief about themselves; it forces them out of their comfort zone.”
Help Yourself
Hay House, founded by author and motivational speaker Louise Hay in 1984, is home to MBS and self-help authors including Mel Robbins, whose The Let Them Theory, for those who haven’t been keeping track, has sold more than three million print copies since it pubbed at the end of 2024. One of the publisher’s newest releases, Be Your Own Bestie by social media personality Misha Brown, debuts at #2 on our hardcover nonfiction list. It’s full of “sharp and sassy insights,” according to our review. “Brown’s caustic humor (‘What good is a dead bitch?’ he asks in a section on emotional exhaustion) bolsters his refreshingly direct wisdom on how to live more authentically.”
Life Stories
Penguin Press founder, president, and editor-in-chief Ann Godoff, who died February 24, left a tremendous legacy of prizewinning and bestselling fiction and nonfiction over the course of her 40-year career—Caleb Carr’s The Alienist, Zadie Smith’s White Teeth, Ron Chernow’s Alexander Hamilton, and Michael Pollan’s 10 books, to name just a few. One of her most recent acquistions, A Hymn to Life by Gisèle Pelicot, translated from the French by Natasha Lehrer and Ruth Diver, lands at #12 on our hardcover nonfiction list. In her memoir, Pelicot recounts the investigation into the drugging and sexual assault she endured over the course of a decade, perpetrated by her husband and 50 other men, all of whom were convicted. When Godoff acquired the book, she said in a statement, “Gisèle Pelicot’s story has captured the attention of so many around the world. She is a woman of grace, dignity and courage. A Hymn to Life is a unique document that will inspire and abide.”
