TheBestseller
Observatory

Best Sellers

Hardcover Fiction

Week of April 27, 2008

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1
NEW
WHERE ARE YOU NOW?
Mary Higgins Clark
Cover of WHERE ARE YOU NOW?

WHERE ARE YOU NOW?

by Mary Higgins Clark · Simon & Schuster

1 wks at #1 · 1 on list

How far would you go to keep a secret? It has been ten years since 21-year-old Mack went missing. A Columbia University senior, he walked out of his room and has not been seen since. Every year he calls his mother on her birthday, on his birthday, and on Mother's Day. He assures her he is fine, refuses to answer her frenzied questions, then hangs up. Even the death of his father on 9/11 does not bring him home. Mack's sister, Caroline, has now endured two family tragedies. Determined to solve the mystery surrounding her brother's disappearance, she sets out to discover the truth. But with it comes a secret that someone will do anything to protect, leading her to a deadly confrontation with an unexpected enemy…

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1
UNACCUSTOMED EARTH
Jhumpa Lahiri
Cover of UNACCUSTOMED EARTH

UNACCUSTOMED EARTH

by Jhumpa Lahiri · Knopf

2 wks on list

The Pulitzer Prize winning author of The Namesake has written eight superbly crafted short stories.

3
NEW
CERTAIN GIRLS
Jennifer Weiner
Cover of CERTAIN GIRLS

CERTAIN GIRLS

by Jennifer Weiner · Atria

1 wks on list

Cannie Shapiro returns in the acclaimed novel from the author of Good in Bed,All Fall Downand the forthcoming Who Do You Love! It's been almost thirteen years since we last saw Cannie Shapiro, the heroine of Good in Bed, whose journey towards happy-ever-after made millions of women the world over laugh, cry and recognise themselves. The last decade of Cannie's life has brought some surprises. Her life story, in fictional form, became an unexpected bestseller, and Cannie has since retreated from fame's fallout, writing science-fiction under a pen name and praying that all her daughter inherited from her father, Cannie's ex-boyfriend Bruce Guberman, are her curls and her eye-colour, and not his predilection for smoking pot. Meanwhile Cannie's best friend, Samantha, is looking for love in all the wrong places, and Cannie's husband, Peter, has decided that he'd like to have a baby, and the family's first choice for a surrogate is none other than Cannie's flamboyant kid sister ...

4
1
BELONG TO ME
Marisa de los Santos
Cover of BELONG TO ME

BELONG TO ME

by Marisa de los Santos · Morrow

2 wks on list

“Marisa de los Santos’s Belong to Me is my favorite discovery of the past years: a terrific page-turner that’s also poignant, funny, surprising and deeply heartfelt.” —Harlan Coben “Complex, engaging, and surprisingly moving.” —Boston Globe The sensational New York Times bestseller from Marisa de los Santos, Belong to Me is a gift for readers, an enchanting, luminous novel about the accidents, both big and small, that affect our choice of friend, lover, and spouse. A story centered around three very different suburban neighbors and what it truly means to “belong” to someone, this eye-opening, unforgettable book is the perfect book club selection—beautifully written, smart and sophisticated women’s fiction that invites discussion as it touches the heart—and the ideal companion to de los Santos’s previous blockbuster, Love Walked In.

5
3
SMALL FAVOR
Jim Butcher
Cover of SMALL FAVOR

SMALL FAVOR

by Jim Butcher · Roc

2 wks on list

Just as wizard Harry Dresden's life begins to calm down, an old bargain comes back to haunt Harry, forcing him to help the Queen of Air and Darkness battle an old foe and trapping him in a nightmare that stretches his skills and loyalties to their limits.

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THE APPEAL
John Grisham
Cover of THE APPEAL

THE APPEAL

by John Grisham · Doubleday

11 wks on list

In Grishams first legal thriller since "The Broker," justice is for sale--andonly the rich can afford it.

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4
COMPULSION
Jonathan Kellerman
Cover of COMPULSION

COMPULSION

by Jonathan Kellerman · Ballantine

3 wks on list

A young woman who disappeared into the inky black night... A retired schoolteacher stabbed to death in broad daylight...Two women butchered in a small-town beauty parlor... Three baffling murder cases, linked only by a perplexing lack of motive... Until LAPD Detective Milo Sturgis and psychologist Alex Delaware are called to the scene of a bizarre 'crime'. A stolen car has been anonymously returned to its owner, undamaged and unblemished - except for a tiny, solitary bloodstain. This miniscule clue is enough to set the pair on a hunt for a multiple killer, from the well-heeled centre of LA society to its desperate edges, even as far as New York where their search thaws out a long-cold case. However this killer proves to be a fleeting shape-shifter, defying identification - and to unmask him, Alex and Milo will have to confront the true face of murderous compulsion...

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2
CHANGE OF HEART
Jodi Picoult
Cover of CHANGE OF HEART

CHANGE OF HEART

by Jodi Picoult · Atria

6 wks on list

Her life shattered by a devastating act of violence, June Nealson is forced to make a pivotal choice that involves her twelve-year-old daughter and a salvation-seeking criminal. By the author of Nineteen Minutes. 1,000,000 first printing.

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NEW
BULLS ISLAND
Dorothea Benton Frank
Cover of BULLS ISLAND

BULLS ISLAND

by Dorothea Benton Frank · Morrow

1 wks on list

Betts hasn't been back to Bulls Island since the tragic night that ended her engagement to Charleston's golden boy. Twenty years later, she leaves her comfortable life and is back in contact with everything she's tried to hard to forget.

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2
A THOUSAND SPLENDID SUNS
Khaled Hosseini
Cover of A THOUSAND SPLENDID SUNS

A THOUSAND SPLENDID SUNS

by Khaled Hosseini · Riverhead

47 wks on list

1 New York Times bestselling author. Main selection of the Book-of-the-Month Club and Literary Guild. Both born in Afghanistan a generation apart and with very different ideas about love and family Mariam and Laila are brought together by war by loss and by fate. As they endure the ever escalating dangers around them - in their home as well as in the streets of Kabul - they form a bond that will ultimately alter the course of their lives and the lives of the next generation. With heart-wrenching power and suspense Hosseini shows how a woman's love for her family can move her to shocking and heroic acts of self-sacrifice and that in the end it is love or even the memory of love that is often the key to survival. "Searing ... forceful ... harrowing." - Publishers Weekly starred. "Unimaginably tragic Hosseini's magnificent second novel is a sad and beautiful testament to both Afghani suffering and strength. Readers who lost themselves in The Kite Runner will not want to miss this unforgettable follow-up." - Booklist starred

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4
REMEMBER ME?
Sophie Kinsella
Cover of REMEMBER ME?

REMEMBER ME?

by Sophie Kinsella · Dial Press

7 wks on list

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • An irresistible novel from the beloved author of The Burnout, What Does It Feel Like?, and the Shopaholic series, about a young woman who finds herself in a life-changing and utterly hilarious predicament. . . . “Nobody does a romantic comedy like the great Sophie Kinsella, and this particular one made me both laugh and cry.”—Freida McFadden, author of The Housemaid When twenty-eight-year-old Lexi Smart wakes up in a London hospital, she’s in for a big surprise. Her teeth are perfect. Her body is toned. Her handbag is Vuitton. Having survived a car accident—in a Mercedes no less—Lexi has lost a big chunk of her memory, three years to be exact, and she’s about to find out just how much things have changed. Somehow Lexi went from a twenty-five-year-old working girl to a corporate big shot with a sleek new loft, a personal assistant, a carb-free diet, and a set of glamorous new friends. And who is this gorgeous husband—who also happens to be a multimillionaire? With her mind still stuck three years in reverse, Lexi greets this brave new world determined to be the person she . . . well, seems to be. That is, until an adorably disheveled architect drops the biggest bombshell of all. Suddenly Lexi is scrambling to catch her balance. Her new life, it turns out, comes complete with secrets, schemes, and intrigue. How on earth did all this happen? Will she ever remember? And what will happen when she does?

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3
ZAPPED
Carol Higgins Clark
Cover of ZAPPED

ZAPPED

by Carol Higgins Clark · Scribner

10 wks on list

Returning home from their honeymoon to discover that their neighbor has put his Manhattan apartment up for sale, Regan Reilly and her husband Jack decide to buy it to enlarge their own loft, but the renovation process spawns its own set of problems and an unexpected case.

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NEW
7TH HEAVEN
James Patterson and Maxine Paetro
Cover of 7TH HEAVEN

7TH HEAVEN

by James Patterson and Maxine Paetro · Little, Brown

Discover the Women's Murder Club's most terrifying case ever in this New York Times bestseller. As a terrible series of fires blazes through California, the heat begins to rage too close to home. A terrible fire in a wealthy suburban home leaves a married couple dead and Detective Lindsay Boxer and her partner Rich Conklin searching for clues. And after California's golden boy Michael Campion has been missing for a month, there finally seems to be a lead in his case-a very devastating lead. As fire after fire consume couples in wealthy, comfortable homes, Lindsay and the Murder Club must race to find the arsonists responsible and get to the bottom of Michael Campion's disappearance. But suddenly the flames are raging too close to home. Frightened for her life and torn between two men, Lindsay must find a way to solve the most daunting dilemmas she's ever faced-at work and at home.

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DEAD HEAT
Joel C. Rosenberg
Cover of DEAD HEAT

DEAD HEAT

by Joel C. Rosenberg · Tyndale

4 wks on list

Book 5 in the bestselling 5-book thriller series that has sold over 1.2 million copies "His novels seem to be ripped from the headlines—next year's headlines." — Washington Times "For many adults Joel Rosenberg is the it author right now. Inside and outside the Beltway in Washington, people are snatching up copies of his almost lifelike terrorist suspense novels." — CNN Headline News The stage is set for war: Oil prices are surging to record highs A new dictator is rising in Iraq China is threatening Taiwan North Korean forces are ready to strike south Israel is feverishly trying to complete the Third Temple And in the midst of a world ready to explode, American president James MacPherson's second term is ending. The battle to succeed him is heating up into the most fiercely contested presidential election in American history. Who will lead a bitterly divided country over the next four years? And just what role—if any—does the US play in history's last days? As the presidential campaign narrows to a dead heat, the Secret Service learns of a catastrophic terrorist plot to assassinate one of the candidates—but which one? Whom do they want dead? And can US forces stop the terrorists before millions lose their lives? From New York Times bestselling novelist Joel C. Rosenberg comes an explosive new political thriller released amid the drama of the 2008 presidential campaign . . . and God forbid it should ever come true.

15
NEW
THE BRIEF WONDROUS LIFE OF OSCAR WAO
Junot Díaz
Cover of THE BRIEF WONDROUS LIFE OF OSCAR WAO

THE BRIEF WONDROUS LIFE OF OSCAR WAO

by Junot Díaz · Riverhead

3 wks on list

Winner of: The Pulitzer Prize The National Book Critics Circle Award The Anisfield-Wolf Book Award The Jon Sargent, Sr. First Novel Prize A Time Magazine #1 Fiction Book of the Year One of The New York Times’s 100 Best Books of the 21st Century One of the best books of 2007 according to: The New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, New York Magazine, Entertainment Weekly, The Boston Globe, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, People, The Village Voice, Time Out New York, Salon, Baltimore City Paper, The Christian Science Monitor, Booklist, Library Journal, Publishers Weekly, New York Public Library, and many more... Nominated as one of America’s best-loved novels by PBS’s The Great American Read and named one of The Atlantic’s Great American Novels of the Past 100 Years Oscar is a sweet but disastrously overweight ghetto nerd who—from the New Jersey home he shares with his old world mother and rebellious sister—dreams of becoming the Dominican J.R.R. Tolkien and, most of all, finding love. But Oscar may never get what he wants. Blame the fukú—a curse that has haunted Oscar’s family for generations, following them on their epic journey from Santo Domingo to the USA. Encapsulating Dominican-American history, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao opens our eyes to an astonishing vision of the contemporary American experience and explores the endless human capacity to persevere—and risk it all—in the name of love.

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WINTER STUDY
Nevada Barr
Cover of WINTER STUDY

WINTER STUDY

by Nevada Barr · Putnam

Soon after Anna Pigeon joins the famed wolf study team of Isle Royale National Park in the middle of Lake Superior, the wolf packs begin to behave in peculiar ways. Giant wolf prints are found, and Anna spies the form of a great wolf from a surveillance plane. When a female member of the team is savaged, Anna is convinced they are being stalked, and what was once a beautiful, idyllic refuge becomes a place of unnatural occurrences and danger beyond the ordinary…

Historical bestseller data sourced from the New York Times Book Review, archived by Hawes Publications.