Bookstat chart: Girl Beneath the Sea surges to top spot, Rooney shoots to second

Andrew Mayne's The Girl Beneath the Sea (Thomas & Mercer) has made a splash in the Bookstat e-book top 10, sailing straight into the number one. After three weeks of dominance, the previous week's top three—Claire McGowan's The Other Wife (Thomas & Mercer), Beth O'Leary's The Flatshare (Quercus) and Harriet Tyce's Blood Orange (Wildfire)—dropped down to make way for an all-new top five.

Faber's Normal People by Sally Rooney (pictured) made its debut in the Bookstat top 10, following the launch of its much-lauded BBC adaptation. Of course, Rooney's second novel has already been a blockbuster hit in print, with 158,323 copies sold in hardback, after its Waterstones Book of the Year 2018 win, and 318,013 sold in paperback (as of the week ending 21st March)—bolstered by winning the Nibbies Book of the Year last May. However, its new status as a lockdown staple has helped its e-book jump to an estimated 17,825 units for the week the adaptation dropped on BBC iPlayer.

The Girl Beneath the Sea led an influx of crime titles into the chart, with Carol Mason's Little White Secrets (Thomas & Mercer) and Marin Montgomery's What We Forgot to Bury (Lake Union) joining it in the top four. However, gentle romantic fiction continued to hold its own, with Jennifer Probst's Love on Beach Avenue (Montlake) joining O'Leary's all-conquering The Flatshare in the top 10.

Hachette has stated The Flatshare sold 16,829 units for the week ending 2nd May and Blood Orange shifted 13,809. Again, these figures rank significantly higher than Bookstat's estimated sales, based on normal buying habits. The e-book boom seems to be continuing through lockdown, or perhaps it was the promise of cut price e-books after the UK chancellor moved forward his decision to remove VAT on e-publications.