Amazing Grace: Hannah Grace's Daydream debuts in the top spot

Hannah Grace’s Daydream (Simon & Schuster) has debuted in the UK Official Top 50 number one spot, selling 33,779 copies in its first week on sale. Grace’s third novel shifted over 10,000 copies more than her previous highest single-week sale, achieved by Wildfire in October 2023, and knocked Colleen Hoover’s It Ends with Us from the overall top spot after two weeks.

The author’s debut Icebreaker also cracked back into the Top 50, rebounding into 47th place. Daydream’s launch-week volume makes it only the second Mass-Market Fiction number one to crest 33,000 copies in a single week this year, joining Richard Osman’s The Last Devil to Die (Penguin), which debuted with 55,088 copies sold in May.

Aside from Daydream, Laurie Gilmore’s autumnal The Cinnamon Bun Book Store (One More Chapter) was the highest new entry in the Mass Market Fiction top 20, as its predecessor The Pumpkin Spice Café returned to the chart in ninth place. Frieda McFadden’s The Housemaid bounced up into the top five.

S&S scored a hat-trick atop the Top 50, with Bob Mortimer’s The Hotel Avocado peeling into second place – and claiming the Original Fiction number one – as It Ends with Us slid to third. At 24,596 copies sold, Mortimer’s second novel was the fastest-selling Original Fiction number one since David Nicholls’ You Are Here (Hodder) in April.

The Hotel Avocado led an all-new top five in the category chart, joined by Robert Harris’ Precipice (Hutchinson Heinemann), Matt Haig’s The Life Impossible (Canongate), Ann Cleeves’ The Dark Wives (Macmillan) and Lee Child’s short-story collection Safe Enough (Bantam). Janice Hallett’s The Examiner (Viper) inspected seventh place. Altogether, 13 of the category chart top 20 were new entries, heralding the start of the gift-buying season.

TikTok chef Jon Watts’ Speedy Weeknight Meals (Bloomsbury) whizzed into the Hardback Non-Fiction number one spot, denying Kay and Kate Allison’s Pinch of Nom Air Fryer (Bluebird) a 10th non-consecutive pole in the category chart.

Back-to-school season saw the Oxford Mini English Dictionary and the Oxford Mini Dictionary and Thesaurus boomerang back to the top 20 in third and 17th place respectively, as Anthony Seldon’s Truss at 10: How Not to Be Prime Minister (Atlantic) swiped fourth. The biography, on 2,217 copies sold in its first week, shifted just 11 copies fewer than the launch week for the former Prime Minister’s own version of events, Ten Years to Save the West (Biteback).

Cathy Glass’s Helpless debuted atop the Paperback Non-Fiction top 20, knocking Rory Stewart’s Politics on the Edge (Vintage) back into second place. This is the foster carer-turned-memoirist’s eighth week in the chart top spot since 2022, and her fourth book on the trot to claim the number one.

Rob Burrow and Kevin Sinfield’s picture book Try (Macmillan Children’s) scored the Children’s number one, shifting 4,410 copies in its first week. Written with Emma Adams and illustrated by Ben Whitehouse, the rugby players’ kids’ book will raise money for sufferers of motor neurone disease, which Rob Burrow died of earlier this year.

Lauren Roberts’ romantasy titles Reckless and Powerless (S&S) held second and third place in the kids’ top 20, as Maria Isabel Sanchez Vegara’s Little People Big Dreams: Taylor Swift (Frances Lincoln Children’s) was down bad in fourth. British Book Award Author of the Year Katherine Rundell’s Impossible Creatures made its paperback debut, winging into sixth place.

J B Priestley’s An Inspector Calls (Heinemann) made its annual September sweep back up the chart, as a new group of year-11s prepare to tackle it for their English literature GCSE. Similarly, Martha Mumford and Cherie Zamazing’s Hooray! It’s Our First Day (Bloomsbury Children’s) bounced into the Pre-School and Picture Book top 20. 

At 3.58 million books sold for £32.6m, the market jumped 2.8% in volume and 2.4% in value week-on-week. Against the same week in 2023, sales looked healthy, jumping 2.4% in value, as average selling price once again peaked above the £9 mark (at £9.11).