Proof of Life
YA thriller author Holly Jackson’s adult debut, Not Quite Dead Yet, is this month’s Good Morning America Book Club pick, #1 on our hardcover fiction list, and #2 in the country overall. Jackson launched her career with 2020’s A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder, which was adapted as a Netflix series and spawned two sequels and a prequel novella; a deluxe edition of Good Girl’s Guide pubbed in June and is #11 on our children’s fiction list. Her books for teens, which also include two standalones, have sold a combined 4.6 million print copies.
In the Cards
Elise Kova self-published several adult and YA fantasies before making her traditional publishng debut with Arcana Academy, #6 on our hardcover fiction list. The novel combines “simmering romance, broody dark academia aesthetics, and an inventive magic system,” according to our review. “The worldbuilding here is largely limited to the confines of the academy, leaving much to explore in future installments.” At least two of those are planned, and Del Rey also picked up Kova’s previously self-published Married to Magic series. On the YA front, Entangled’s new Mayhem imprint is releasing Dragon Cursed, first in a duology, in January.
For Better, for Worse
In its third week on sale, journalist Sophie Elmhirst’s A Marriage at Sea finds safe harbor at #14 on our hardcover nonficiton list, cracking the top 15 for the first time. Billed as “a true story of love, obsession, and shipwreck,” the book recounts how Maurice and Maralyn Bailey’s dream of trading suburban mundanity for a life at sea turned into a nightmare: after a flailing, dying whale punched a hole in the hull of their 31-foot sloop, Auralyn, they spent 118 days adrift in the Pacific Ocean on an inflatable raft before being rescued. “The grisly details of survival are narrated by Elmhirst with vivid immediacy, and her handling of the lead-up and the aftermath are equally fascinating,” per our starred review. “It’s an un-put-downable saga of a relationship pushed to the limits.”
Love on the Run
Chasing Shelter, book five in Catherine Cowles’s Sparrow Falls small-town contemporary romantic suspense series, lands at #11 on our trade paperback list. Trope-tastic notes include single dad, neighbors to lovers, and grumpy x sunshine.
