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New York Times Hardcover Fiction Bestsellers
January 17, 2021

1. The Vanishing Half
by Brit Bennett

The lives of twin sisters who run away from a Southern Black community at age 16 diverge as one returns and the other takes on a different racial identity but their fates intertwine.
2. The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue
by V.E. Schwab

A Faustian bargain comes with a curse that affects the adventure Addie LaRue has across centuries.
3. The Return
by Nicholas Sparks

A doctor serving in the Navy in Afghanistan goes back to North Carolina where two women change his life.
4. Ready Player Two
by Ernest Cline

In a sequel to Ready Player One, Wade Watts discovers a technological advancement and goes on a new quest.
5. Where the Crawdads Sing
by Delia Owens

In a quiet town on the North Carolina coast in 1969, a young woman who survived alone in the marsh becomes a murder suspect.
6. Anxious People
by Fredrik Backman

A failed bank robber holds a group of strangers hostage at an apartment open house.
7. A Time for Mercy
by John Grisham

The third book in the Jake Brigance series. A 16-year-old is accused of killing a deputy in Clanton, Miss., in 1990.
8. The Mystery of Mrs. Christie
by Marie Benedict

What might have happened during the 11 days in which a rising mystery author went missing in 1926.
9. The Midnight Library
by Matt Haig

Nora Seed finds a library beyond the edge of the universe that contains books with multiple possibilities of the lives one could have lived.
10. Deadly Cross
by James Patterson

The 28th book in the Alex Cross series. An investigation of a double homicide sends Alex Cross to Alabama.
11. Daylight
by David Baldacci

The F.B.I. agent Atlee Pine's search for her twin sister overlaps with a military investigator's hunt for someone involved in a global conspiracy.
12. The Guest List
by Lucy Foley

A wedding between a TV star and a magazine publisher on an island off the coast of Ireland turns deadly.
13. The Awakening
by Nora Roberts

The first book in the Dragon Heart Legacy series. Breen Kelly travels through a portal in Ireland to a land of faeries and mermaids.
14. Hush-Hush
by Stuart Woods

The 56th book in the Stone Barrington series. Old friends come to Stone's aid as he takes on an expanding cabal of enemies.
15. The Sentinel
by Lee Child and Andrew Child

Jack Reacher intervenes on an ambush in Tennessee and uncovers a conspiracy.
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A version of this list appears in the January 17, 2021 issue of The New York Times Book Review. Rankings reflect sales for the week ending January 2, 2021.
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