NEW YORK (AP) 鈥� Anticipation for one of the fall鈥檚 likeliest bestsellers has been growing all year.
For months, Colleen Hoover鈥檚 millions of fans on TikTok, Instagram and elsewhere have been talking up and posting early excerpts from her novel 鈥淚t Starts With Us.鈥� By summer, the author鈥檚 sequel to her bestselling 鈥淚t Ends With Us鈥� had already reached the top 10 Amazon.com. It might have climbed higher but for competition from other Hoover novels, including 鈥淯gly Love,鈥� 鈥淰erity鈥� and, of course, 鈥淚t Ends With Us,鈥� the dramatic tale of a love triangle and a woman鈥檚 endurance of domestic abuse that young TikTok users have embraced and helped make Hoover the country鈥檚 most popular fiction writer.
Hoover鈥檚 extraordinary run on bestseller lists, from Amazon.com to The New York Times, has been Beatle-esque for much of 2022, with four or more books likely to appear in the top 10 at a given moment. 鈥淚t Starts With Us鈥� had been so eagerly desired by her admirers 鈥� CoHorts, some call themselves 鈥� that she broke a personal rule: Don鈥檛 let 鈥渙utside influences鈥� determine her next book.
鈥淚 never allowed myself to entertain a sequel, but with the amount of people emailing me every day and tagging me in an online petition to write about (those characters), their story began to build in my head in the same way my other books begin,鈥� she told The Associated Press in a recent email. 鈥淓ventually I craved telling this story as much as I did my other stories, so I owe the readers a big thank you for the nudging.鈥�
Hoover鈥檚 new book should help extend what has been another solid year for the industry. Booksellers are looking forward to a mix of commercial favorites such as Hoover, Anthony Horowitz, Beverly Jenkins and Veronica Roth alongside what Barnes & Noble CEO James Daunt calls a 鈥渞eally strong鈥� lineup of literary releases, including novels by Ian McEwan and Kate Atkinson.
The fall also will feature new fiction from Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk and Pulitzer Prize-winners Elizabeth Strout and Andrew Sean Greer. Celeste Ng鈥檚 鈥淥ur Missing Hearts鈥� is her first novel since 鈥淟ittle Fires Everywhere.鈥� Story collections are expected from George Saunders, Andrea Barrett and Ling Ma, along with novels by Percival Everett, Barbara Kingsolver, Kevin Wilson, N.K. Jemisin, Lydia Millet and Yiyun Li.
Joe Concha鈥檚 鈥淐ome On, Man!: The Truth About Joe Biden鈥檚 Terrible, Horrible, No-Good, Very Bad Presidency鈥� is the most colorfully named of the latest round of books attacking an incumbent president 鈥� a long and profitable publishing tradition. But the most high-profile works of political reporting dwell on Biden鈥檚 predecessor, Donald Trump, among them 鈥淐onfidence Man,鈥� by The New York Times鈥� Maggie Haberman, and 鈥淭he Divider: Trump in the White House, 2017鈥�2021,鈥� by Peter Baker of the Times and Susan Glasser of The New Yorker.
Michelle Obama鈥檚 鈥淭he Light We Carry鈥� is her first entirely new book since her worldwide bestseller from 2018, 鈥淏ecoming.鈥� Benjamin Netanyahu鈥檚 鈥淏ibi鈥� is the first memoir by the former Israeli Prime Minister, while American politicians with new books include Rep. Cori Bush of Missouri, Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas and Texas gubernatorial candidate Beto O鈥橰ourke.
Celebrity books include Bono鈥檚 鈥淪urrender,鈥� Matthew Perry鈥檚 鈥淔riends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing鈥� and Geena Davis鈥� 鈥淒ying of Politeness.鈥� Bob Dylan reflects upon an art form he helped reinvent in 鈥淭he Philosophy of Modern Song,鈥� while the title of Jan Wenner鈥檚 memoir invokes the Dylan classic that helped inspire the name of the magazine he founded, 鈥淟ike a Rolling Stone.鈥�
History books will cover the famous and the overlooked. Among the former are Pulitzer-winner Jon Meacham鈥檚 鈥淎nd There Was Light,鈥� the latest entry into the canon of Abraham Lincoln scholarship, and Pulitzer-winner Stacy Schiff鈥檚 biography of Samuel Adams, 鈥淭he Revolutionary.鈥� Fred Kaplan, who focused on Lincoln鈥檚 prose in 鈥淟incoln: The Biography of a Writer,鈥� now assesses Thomas Jefferson in 鈥淗is Masterly Pen: A Biography of Jefferson the Writer.鈥�
Releases highlighting those less remembered include Kevin Hazzard鈥檚 鈥淎merican Sirens: The Incredible Story of the Black Men Who Became America鈥檚 First Paramedics,鈥� and Katie Hickman鈥檚 鈥淏rave Hearted: The Women of the American West.鈥� With the overturning last summer of Roe v. Wade, Laura Kaplan鈥檚 鈥淭he Story of Jane鈥� is a timely reissue of her 1995 book about the underground abortion counseling service founded in Chicago in 1969, four years before the Supreme Court鈥檚 historic Roe ruling.
Bruce Henderson鈥檚 鈥淏ridge to the Sun鈥� centers on the recruitment of Japanese-Americans, some of whom had been in internment camps, to assist in U.S. intelligence gathering during World War II.
鈥淚t was really hard to research because many of them had been working on top secret projects, and, even after they had been discharged, were reminded that they were under the National Security Act and that military secrets had to be kept,鈥� Henderson says. 鈥淲e had to do a lot of digging and contact families and see what the veterans had left behind. Of the six guys that I follow in my book, only one was still alive.鈥�
Hillel Italie, The Associated Press
