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The third title in Moyes’ blockbuster Me Before You trilogy, Still Me, buzzed straight into the Weekly E-Book Ranking number one spot in the same week that it topped the Original Fiction chart in print. The author was an early pioneer of the weekly ranking back in its infancy in spring 2016, topping the list 11 times in its first 15 weeks, as the film adaptation of Me Before You bossed the box office and its sequel, After You, ruled the print charts. The e-book editions of Me Before You and After You spent a combined 10 weeks atop the ranking—still the longest consecutive run for any author—a streak that was ended only by Paula Hawkins’ juggernaut The Girl on the Train. Still Me’s ascendance to the number one spot makes Moyes’ trilogy the first entire series to top the weekly ranking.
Helen Fields’ Perfect Death also entered the e-book list, in second place, banishing its HarperCollins stable-mate (and last week’s number one) Gail Honeyman’s Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine down to third. Fields’ previous title, Perfect Prey, topped the ranking last July.
With February approaching (this chart covers the week ending 27th January) and e-book-buyers’ thoughts turning from "New Year, new you" to Valentine’s Day, romance titles thundered into the chart. Alongside Moyes, new entries included Jill Mansell’s This Could Change Everything, former weekly ranking-topper Ellie Dean’s With a Kiss and a Prayer, Trisha Ashley’s A Good Heart is Hard to Find and, almost neatly bookending the top 20, Still Me’s predecessor After You making a return to the ranking in 19th (and adding to its weeks-in-chart number, thus remaining two appearances ahead of Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine’s 33). Me Before You, the first in the trilogy, only narrowly missed out on a top 20 place.
A thrilling twist
But crime titles will always be the e-book market’s bread and butter, and there were a handful of thrillers amid the romance.
A J Finn’s psychological thriller The Woman in the Window, which shot straight into the print Top 50 in the same week, charted in sixth place, with James Oswald’s The Gathering Dark—the eighth in the crime writer’s Inspector McLean series—just below, in seventh place. T M Logan’s 29 Seconds also entered the ranking, in 18th place.
WKS | TITLE | AUTHOR | IMPRINT | ISBN (978+) | DLP | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | 1 | Still Me | Jojo Moyes | Michael Joseph | 1405924214 | £9.99 |
2 | 1 | Perfect Death | Helen Fields | Avon | 0008181628 | £3.49 |
3 | 33 | Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine | Gail Honeyman | HarperCollins | 0008172138 | £5.49 |
4 | 1 | This Could Change Everything | Jill Mansell | Headline | 1472208965 | £8.99 |
5 | 1 | With a Kiss and a Prayer | Ellie Dean | Cornerstone | 1473539808 | £3.99 |
6 | 1 | The Woman in the Window | A J Finn | HarperCollins | 0008234171 | £7.99 |
7 | 1 | The Gathering Dark | James Oswald | Michael Joseph | 1405925327 | £7.99 |
8 | 2 | 12 Rules for Life | Jordan B Peterson | Allen Lane | 0241351659 | £9.99 |
9 | 1 | A Good Heart is Hard to Find | Trisha Ashley | Transworld | 1473526112 | £4.99 |
10 | 4 | Fire and Fury | Michael Wolff | Little, Brown | 1408711385 | £9.99 |
11 | 3 | Faking Friends | Jane Fallon | Michael Joseph | 1405933117 | £4.99 |
12 | 22 | The Keeper of Lost Things | Ruth Hogan | Hodder & Stoughton | 1473635494 | £3.99 |
13 | 3 | Anatomy of a Scandal | Sarah Vaughan | Simon & Schuster | 1471165016 | £4.99 |
14 | 24 | The Dry | Jane Harper | Little, Brown | 1408708187 | £4.99 |
15 | 1 | Judgment Road | Christine Feehan | Little, Brown | 0349416731 | £5.99 |
16 | 4 | Lose Weight for Good | Tom Kerridge | Absolute | 1472949301 | £14.99 |
17 | 13 | Then She Was Gone | Lisa Jewell | Cornerstone | 1473538337 | £3.99 |
18 | 1 | 29 Seconds | T M Logan | Zaffre | 1785770814 | £2.99 |
19 | 35 | After You | Jojo Moyes | Michael Joseph | 1405909082 | £3.99 |
20 | 12 | The Midnight Line | Lee Child | Transworld | 1473542297 | £9.49 |