Sometimes, a 47-second video is all it takes to change a book's destiny. 'The Salt Between Stars,' the debut fantasy novel by Maren Ashby, published in January by a small independent press, spent eight months in complete obscurity. Then, a TikTok video posted by a literary influencer with 180,000 followers triggered an unstoppable chain reaction.
The video, in which the user @libraryofaching simply held the book to her chest in silence, reached 4.2 million views overnight. Within a week, the novel sold out at all major retailers in the UK, US, and Australia. Six weeks later, in September 2026, the book rose to second place on the New York Times combined print and ebook bestseller list.
The plot revolves around Sable, a cartographer who maps the territories of grief—a landscape literally shaped by the pain of losing loved ones. The story, described as "precise and devastating," resonated with the BookTok audience, weary of dark romance and seeking stories that address pain with honesty. The comments on the original video became a support forum where readers shared their own losses.
The numbers speak for themselves: from 2,400 copies sold in the first eight months, sales surged to 41,000 in the week of the viral video. Sales have since stabilized between 28,000 and 35,000 copies per week, bringing the total to over 310,000. The author, who was previously a substitute teacher, has left her job and is now in Scotland writing the sequel.
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