Working It

The week’s big debut, Nightwork by Nora Roberts, is “a master class in the slow burn,” our review said, “blending heartrending emotion and thrills to deeply satisfying effect.” It’s the #5 book in the country and stars Harry Booth, the “beguiling thief,” per our review, known as the Chameleon. A chameleon-charm necklace, created by husband-wife jewelry makers Jim and Joyce Taber of Cotton Thistle, is among the couple’s Nightwork- and Nora Roberts–themed wares sold at Turn the Page Bookstore in Boonsboro, Md., which is owned by Roberts’s husband, Bruce Wilder.

Battle Tested

Jennifer L. Armentrout lands at #2 on our hardcover fiction list with The War of Two Queens, fourth in her Blood and Ash series with Blue Box Press, an imprint of boutique publisher Evil Eye Concepts. Blue Box released books one and two in May 2021, and book three a few weeks later. A Shadow in the Ember, the first book in a prequel series, followed in October, netting Armentrout’s strongest debut week to date; the new book did even better.

Night Moves

Two Nights in Lisbon by Chris Pavone is #10 on our hardcover fiction list. “When American businessman John Wright vanishes one morning from his hotel, his wife, Ariel Pryce, insists he was kidnapped, but issues soon emerge that make both the Lisbon police and the CIA skeptical,” per our starred review. “The enigmatic central character, whose moral compass is set a bit differently than most, sets this above the pack.” First-week print unit sales set the novel well above those of Pavone’s previous books, including his Edgar-winning debut, The Expats.

NEW & NOTABLE

Either/Or
Elif Batuman
#15 Hardcover Fiction
“In this effervescent sequel to The Idiot, Batuman continues charting the sentimental education of Selin, a student of Russian literature at Harvard,” per our starred review. “As accomplished as The Idiot was, this improves upon it.”

Every Cloak Rolled in Blood
James Lee Burke
#16 Hardcover Fiction
“This is one of those extraordinary crime novels that feels more like real life,” our starred review said of the latest entry in Burke’s long-running Holland family saga, “with incidents and people that aren’t obviously connected piling up in the protagonist’s life, rather than a neat set of clues pointing to a culprit.”