Thor’s Hammer
Brad Thor’s latest Scot Harvath thriller, Edge of Honor, takes the #2 spot on our hardcover fiction list. The book is the 24th installment of his bestselling series about America’s top spy, which debuted in 2002 with The Lions of Lucerne and is currently in development to be adapted by Sony Pictures Television. This new entry notched higher on our list in its first week than the series’ previous title, Shadow of a Doubt, which debuted at #4 upon its release last August.
Having a Ball
Charlamagne tha God’s Atria imprint Black Privilege Publishing scored its first spot on our hardcover nonfiction list when Dawn Staley’s Uncommon Favor debuted at #5 back in May. A recent sales bump has that book back on the list at #12. In it, the NCAA national championship–winning head coach of the University of South Carolina’s women’s basketball team—and a three-time Olympic gold medalist and six-time WNBA All-Star herself—chronicles her path to success and the obstacles she faced along the way. In an interview tied to the recent fifth anniversary of Black Privilege, Charlamagne told PW that “it’s imperative now more than ever before to help the Black community tell their stories.”
Romantasy Isn’t Dead
Two new titles that blend fantasy and romance hit our hardcover fiction list this week, with Thea Guanzon’s Tusk Love and Stacey McEwan’s A Forbidden Alchemy debuting at #4 and #8, respectively. Guanzon’s human-orc love story and McEwan’s tale of ill-fated lovers in a world ruled by magic—the first in a planned duology—join two other romantasy titles that have taken up residence on the list of late: Rachel Gillig’s fairy tale–inspired The Knight and the Moth and Rebecca Yarros’s dragon-filled Onyx Storm, which is the bestselling title of the year so far, with more than two million copies sold between its standard and deluxe editions. As has become trendy in the world of romantasy, the standard hardcover editions of Tusk Love and A Forbidden Alchemy both got a rather deluxe treatment, with the former sporting special endpapers and a reversible jacket, and the latter boasting sprayed edges.
Flying Colors
British novelist Chris Whitaker’s latest book, All the Colors of the Dark, was a Read with Jenna pick and has sold 310K copies in hardcover since it pubbed a year ago. PW’s starred review praised the novel, which is set in 1970s Missouri, as “a dazzling epic” that is “both a riveting serial killer thriller and a heartrending love story.” In a prepub interview with PW, Whitaker discussed the childhood trauma, years of substance abuse, and disastrous stint as a stock broker that preceded his decision to pursue his passion for crime fiction. “I don’t really believe in fate or anything like that,” he said, “but if everything bad that happened to me was leading me here, it feels like there’s a bit of payoff.”
