V E Schwab’s Gallant (Titan) was the highest new entry in the Top 50, thundering into the Original Fiction number one. At 20,581 copies sold, the title notched up Schwab’s biggest ever single-week sale by quite some distance—it was a whopping 211% up on her previous bestseller, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue.
Gallant was the latest Sci Fi & Fantasy title to top the category chart in 2022—in the past six weeks, four titles in the genre have claimed the pole. Sci Fi & Fantasy is 40% up in volume for the first 10 weeks of the year, compared to 2020. Given the healthy supply of hardback titles into the chart— four of the category’s top five for 2022 to date are in the format— value has soared 64%. Even with this stiff competition, Gallant is already in second place for Sci Fi & Fantasy’s year-to-date chart.
Dolly Parton and James Patterson’s Run Rose Run (Century) was the second-highest new entry in Original Fiction, selling 16,899 copies. Patterson’s collaborations with former US president Bill Clinton, The President is Missing and The President’s Daughter (both Century), have not only sold more than 325,000 copies between them, but have become the go-to Father’s Day fiction gift. Is Parton readying her cowboy boots for a run at the Mother’s Day Original Fiction top spot? Traditionally, the latest Mary Berry cookbook holds sway in the Top 50, but the baking queen has recently crossed over into the autumnal pre-Christmas period, leaving Mother’s Day wide open.
The Saga category is already rallying its troops, with Rosie Goodwin charting in both Original Fiction—with A Daughter’s Destiny (Zaffre)— and Mass Market Fiction—with A Rose Among Thorns (Headline)—last week. However, Kazuo Ishiguro’s Klara and the Sun (Faber) took the Mass Market Fiction number one for a second week, shifting 12,042 copies. Milly Johnson’s The Woman in the Middle (S&S), James Patterson’s The Red Book (Penguin) and Christy Lefteri’s Songbirds (Manilla) also made their entries into the category chart.