Hawkins express hurtles back to the top; Zoella picks prosper

Paula Hawkins took back the number one spot from David Walliams, a book/DVD deal propelled The Revenant close to the summit and vlogger Zoella showed why she just may be the new Richard & Judy.

Hawkins’ The Girl on the Train (Black Swan) shifted just under 31,000 units through Nielsen BookScan’s Total Consumer Market for the seven days ending 4th June, regaining the UK Official number one after a two-week absence. It is the fourth non-consecutive pole position for The Girl on the Train mass market paperback and that edition has sold just under 324,103 copies since being released on 5th May—an average of 10,455 units a day.

The Girl on the Train ended the two-week reign for Walliams’ The World’s Worst Children (HarperCollins Children’s Books, 26,783 copies). The short story collection dropped back to second place overall, but retained the Children’s number one for the fourth week on the trot.

Hawkins also denied both the top spot and Mass Market Fiction number one to Michael Punke’s The Revenant (The Borough Press) which sold just under 22,000 copies for third place overall on the back of a Sainbury’s DVD and film tie-in promotion. Punke’s book—originally published in the US back in 2002—had only once shifted more than 10,000 units in a single week (in January 2016 when the Leonardo DiCaprio film was first released in the UK).

Stephen King chalked up his 17th Original Fiction number one since BookScan records began as End of Watch (Hodder) sold 10,553 hardbacks in its first week on sale. End of Watch is the last in the Bill Hodges trilogy of which the previous two, Mr Mercedes and Finders Keepers (both Hodder), also grabbed Original Fiction number ones in their début weeks. End of Watch’s total last week was 10% up on Finders Keepers’ first seven days total in June 2015.

Like a never-ending session of HIIT, Joe Wicks’ Lean in 15 (Bluebird) trundles on, chalking up its 21st non-consecutive Paperback Non-Fiction number one on sales of 15,122 copies. The only thing to stop Wicks may be Wicks himself. The Instagram heartthrob’s follow-up, Lean in 15: The Shape Plan (Bluebird), is out on Thursday (16th June) and given that it has been the number one title on Amazon for the last week or so on pre-orders alone, it may be safe to assume it will be the bestselling book in next week’s chart.

The biggest news in tween-land last week was the announcement of the eight Young Adult titles on Zoe “Zoella” Sugg’s Richard & Judy-esque book club. Like R&J’s current incarnation, Zoella’s Book Club (ZBC) is in association with W H Smith, and early results suggest the combination of the YouTube megastar’s imprimatur and the welly of a national chain’s promotion will shift a lot of units.

Last week the eight ZBC titles combined to sell 16,538 copies, a whopping 496% up on the octet’s total the previous seven days (although one of the books was only available as of last week). All eight titles sold at least 1,000 units last week and hit the TCM Top 250—led by American author Jennifer Niven’s first appearance in the Top 50 with All the Bright Places (Penguin) selling almost 4,000 copies and hitting 47th place. The previous week, just one of the books was in the Top 500—Giovanna Fletcher’s Billy and Me (Penguin) in 475th position—and not one sold more than 975 units.

There’s a nice bit of loyalty by Zoella selecting Amy Alward’s The Potion Diaries (Simon & Schuster Children’s Books). Many readers may remember that Alward was the former Penguin Children’s editorial director (and Bookseller Rising Star) now full-time author who, ahem, helped the YouTuber with the writing of her novels.

Lisa McInerney got a bump from her Baileys Prize for Women’s Fiction win last week. The Irishwoman’s début, The Glorious Heresies (John Murray), sold 1,678 copies after only shifting 222 the previous seven days. That’s a 655% rise week on week and the book climbed from 1,676th to 137th in the chart.