NEW ON THE LIST AND IN PUBLISHING
‘Game’ changer: Like Paula Hawkins ( The Girl on the Train,
Into the Water), British writer Ruth Ware is finding fans on this side of the pond with her psychological thrillers. Ware’s third novel, The Lying Game, released on July 25, lands at No. 6 on USA TODAY’s Best-Selling Books list, her highest debut. It’s about four female friends, now grown, who face the consequences of the “lying game” they played when they were students. Ware is having a good summer. Her second
novel, The Woman in Cabin 10 — a mystery about a travel writer on a cruise ship who thinks she witnessed a murder — is No. 9. A best seller when it was first released (it debuted at No. 15 on July 28, 2016), Cabin has cruised to a second life since its release in paperback in April. Movie rights have been sold for both Cabin 10 and In a Dark, Dark Wood, Ware’s debut, which peaked at No. 59 last August. Reese Witherspoon is developing Wood, the story of a reclusive crime writer.
‘Ready,’ set, go:
Upcoming movies are driving renewed sales for two books, The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls and Ready Player One by Ernest Cline. Castle, Walls’ memoir about her poor, itinerant family, opens in theaters Aug. 11 and stars Brie Larson, Naomi Watts and Woody Harrelson. It’s No. 8 this week. The book’s previous high was No. 10 in September 2006. Steven Spielberg revealed the trailer for
Ready Player One at Comic-Con last month. And now Cline’s sci-fi novel about kids who escape into a virtual-reality world is No. 11. It previously peaked at No. 25 in September 2005.