Night Shifter
Stop us if you’ve heard this one before: romantasy author blows up on BookTok, gets acquired for traditional publication. Bloom Books snapped up Lauren Palphreyman’s popular werewolf trilogy in August and released the first installment, The Wolf King, in November. Three months on, the sequel, The Night Prince, lands at the top of our hardcover fiction list. It’s the week’s biggest debut and sold almost 10K print copies more in its first week than its predecessor did.
Chill and Netflix
Brad Thor, best known for his Scot Harvath series, teamed up with fellow thriller writer Ward Larsen for Cold Zero, #8 on our hardcover fiction list. “CIA officers Kasey Sheridan and Walter Ho attempt to shield Chinese physicist Dr. Chen Li and his secret weapon from America’s enemies in this excellent standalone,” according to our starred review. “Seamlessly fusing aspects of survival fiction and espionage thrillers, Thor and Larson serve up high-caliber suspense that keeps the pages flying. It’s pure popcorn.” Netflix, apparently, agrees: the streaming service is adapting the novel as a feature film, with Thor serving as an executive producer.
Heist Zeitgest
In middle grade author James Ponti’s Europa, which takes the #8 spot on our children’s fiction list, thieves target cultural institutions across Europe. “I’ve written multiple heists and museum break-ins across three different book series,” he explained in an essay published in PW shortly after the October 2025 jewelry heist at the Louvre. “I research diligently, study historical robberies, interview workers, and painstakingly scour maps, layouts, and social media to find security lapses.” That said, “If I wrote a Louvre robbery the way it actually occurred, my editor would laugh in my face and readers would flood my inbox with mocking images of the Hamburglar escaping on a Vespa.”
Faith Some More
As Lent commences, a pair of new Christian living books appear on our hardcover nonfiction list. At #5, Uncluttered Faith is the sixth book by Joshua Becker, a former pastor who has been blogging at Becoming Minimalist since 2008. His new book, he writes, “represents an invitation to the Christian community to embrace a life of intentionality and deeper spiritual growth through owning less.” Christine Caine, cofounder of the Propel Women ministry, also has several books to her credit, including the popular devotional Unshakeable. Her latest title, The Faith to Flourish, uses arboreal symbolism from scripture (specifically, psalm 52:8) as a framework: “In every part of the olive tree is something for us to learn spiritually and then to weave practically into our lives for God’s praise and his glory,” she writes.
