Colleen Hoover's 2018 psychological thriller "Verity" has returned to the bestseller charts, notching its best weekly print sales to date nearly eight years after its original release, according to Publishers Weekly's bestseller list published Monday. The surge follows the August 11 release of the first trailer for Amazon MGM Studios' film adaptation, which opens in theaters worldwide on October 2.
Verity re-entered Publishers Weekly's trade paperback ranking at No. 4 for the week, the trade publication reported, driven by renewed promotional attention around the movie rather than a new edition or reissue. The novel — about a struggling writer hired to finish an injured bestselling author's book series, who uncovers a disturbing manuscript hidden in the author's home — became a word-of-mouth and BookTok phenomenon years after Hoover first self-published it, eventually helping to establish her as one of publishing's best-selling novelists of the decade.
From the Page to the Screen
The film stars Anne Hathaway as Verity Crawford and Dakota Johnson as Lowen Ashleigh, with Josh Hartnett rounding out the cast as Verity's husband. It is directed by Michael Showalter, whose credits include "The Idea of You," from a screenplay by Nick Antosca and Hoover herself. The trailer, previewed by Variety, leans into the novel's psychological cat-and-mouse dynamic between its two leads rather than the book's more explicit passages, a common adjustment for page-to-screen adaptations aimed at a broad theatrical audience.
Hoover's other adaptations have had mixed box office fortunes: "It Ends With Us" became a surprise 2024 hit despite off-screen tension between its stars, while a film version of "Reminders of Him" is separately in development. Verity's publisher, Grand Central, has not disclosed a fresh print run tied to the film, though retailers have reported reordering the title in recent weeks to keep pace with demand.
Elsewhere on this week's list, Caroline Chambers' "What to Cook When You Don't Feel Like Cooking: Make It Fast" led hardcover nonfiction, while Sierra Simone's "Devil," the fourth entry in her self-published Priest series, landed at No. 9 — a series that Publishers Weekly noted has sold roughly 470,000 print copies since Simone began self-publishing it in 2015, underscoring the continued commercial strength of romance and thriller titles that built their audiences outside traditional publishing before crossing over to bestseller lists.
Verity's film release next month is expected to test how much of that built-in readership converts to opening-weekend ticket sales, a dynamic the studio will be watching closely after several recent book-to-film adaptations outperformed expectations in print but underwhelmed at the box office.
