This Week's Bestsellers: May 19, 2014

America Singer’s Swan Song…Maybe

Kiera Cass fans are flocking to the final volume in her Selection trilogy, The One (HarperTeen), which concludes her saga about working-class girl America Singer and the men she must choose between; the book debuts at #4 on our Children’s Frontlist Fiction list. After writing one self-published novel, Siren (2009), Cass told PW, two well-known stories “merged in my head”: the tale of Cinderella, and the biblical story of Esther, a poor orphan, who was among the many beautiful virgins summoned to the palace for a year’s worth of grooming as part of the king’s search for a new queen. The Selection (2012), pitched as “The Hunger Games meets The Bachelor,” was an instant hit, and a second volume, The Elite, followed in 2013; together they have sold more than 800,000 copies. The books have also made a substantial splash overseas, with rights sold into 26 territories. HarperTeen announced a first printing for The One of 300,000 copies; via a social media promotion, more than 300,000 fans recently used the #unlocktheone hashtag to “unlock” the book’s first 10 chapters online.

One question Cass always gets is whether she’s Team Maxon or Team Aspen—meaning, is she rooting for America to wind up with the prince or the commoner? She knows this time around she’s also going to get asked repeatedly if America’s story is really done. “Everybody is already asking if I’m going to keep the story going, but as of this point, I’m working on something else,” Cass said. She’s also made herself a vow not to read replies on her Twitter account, at least not for a while. “The end is coming. Not everybody’s going to be happy.” —Sue Corbett

Weinstein Has a Hit with Captivity Memoir

Finding Me, Michelle Knight’s account of the decade she spent in captivity at the hands of her kidnapper, Ariel Castro, was the top-selling title on our Hardcover Nonfiction list for the week ended May 11. The book, out from Weinstein Publishing on May 6, sold 31,031 copies in its first week on sale at outlets tracked by Nielsen BookScan. The book had a strong digital showing last week as well, hitting #6 on Apple’s iBooks bestseller list.

Written with journalist Michelle Burford, Finding Me is arguably Weinstein’s biggest book of the season, and one of the publisher’s more visible titles since reforming in 2012. Weinstein sent Knight on a significant media tour, launching the book with appearances on Dateline, Today, Anderson Cooper 360, Dr. Phil, and a cover story in People magazine.

“Michelle has really connected to people through her media interviews,” said Kathleen Schmidt, publicity director at Weinstein Publishing. “She has really touched people with her story, showing that even in the toughest situations, you can survive.”

Weinstein has 250,000 copies of the book in print. Though still in its first printing, Schmidt is “confident” the publisher will head back to press.—Clare Swanson

Mad About Madison

Former Second Lady Lynne Cheney hits the bestsellers list with her biography, James Madison: A Life Reconsidered, and earns some new Federalist merit badges in the process. Cheney is an author of historical picture books for children (including When Washington Crossed the Delaware and the bestsellers America: A Patriotic Primer and Our 50 States: A Family Adventure Across America) and now sits at #13 on our Hardcover Nonfiction after selling 7,500 copies since the book’s release. Cheney has been making the usual rounds of Fox’s conservative constellation of TV programs—including O’Reilly Factor, The Real Story with Gretchen Carlson, and Fox & Friends—but she’s also appeared on The View, Charlie Rose, CBS This Morning, and Andrea Mitchell Reports. Cheney has also taken to social media, using Twitter and Facebook to document her book tour, which has taken her to solo stops at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, Anderson’s in Chicago, the Union League of Chicago, and the Hoover Institute at Stanford. Her husband, the former veep, has also joined her in conversation for appearances at the American Enterprise Institute, the George W. Bush Presidential Library in Dallas, and the Richard Nixon Foundation Library and Ronald Reagan Foundation, both in Los Angeles.—Alex Crowley

Top 10 Overall