E L James' Freed shackles the top spot

E L James' Freed (Arrow), the final instalment in the blockbuster Fifty Shades series, has made its debut in the UK Official Top 50 number one spot, selling 35,516 copies in its first week on sale. The paperback ended the three-week run of Richard Osman's The Thursday Murder Club (Viking) in the top spot, beating it by just 1,854 copies.

The first title in the Fifty Shades of Grey series is still the bestselling book of the Nielsen BookScan era, with 4.7 million copies sold. Over the summer of 2012, it notched up 18 straight weeks at the top spot, at one point selling over 664,000 copies in a single week. Despite the success of the original trilogy, it was 2015 follow-up Grey—the series' opener re-told from the point of view of sadistic billionaire Christian Grey—that broke records for its launch week, of 385,972 copies sold. However, the early 2010s Fifty Shades fervour seems to have died out over the intervening years. Freed achieved James' lowest-selling first week, with a 91% drop on its series predecessor.

Lucinda Riley's The Missing Sister (Macmillan) reigned for a second week atop the Original Fiction top 20, as Adele Parks' Both of You (HQ) debuted in second place.

Tom Kerridge's Outdoor Cooking (Bloomsbury) moved into the Hardback Non-Fiction number one spot, holding the top spot for a second week running. Sinead O'Connor's Rememberings (Sandycove) debuted in the category chart top five.

Raynor Winn's The Wild Silence (Penguin) held the Paperback Non-Fiction number one, as Ben Macintyre's Agent Sonya (Penguin) and the Secret Barrister's Fake Law (Picador) zipped up into second and third respectively.

Marcus Rashford and Carl Anka's You are a Champion (Macmillan Children's) was the Children's number one for a second week, as Phil Earle's When the Sky Falls (Andersen) was the highest new entry in the kids' top 20.

Is the hot weather drawing the public away from bookshops? The market was at 3.3 million books sold for £27m last week, the lowest in both volume and value terms since mid-April. However, it was still up 3.7% in volume and 1.4% in value on the same week in 2019.

In the Amazon charts, Joe Wicks' Joe's Family Food (Bluebird) climbed 11 places up the Amazon Charts' Most-Sold: Non-Fiction top 20 to claim the top spot a week ahead of its publication.