Rebecca Yarros storms to the top of the charts

In news that will surprise very few, Rebecca Yarros has soared straight to first place in this week’s chart with Onyx Storm (Piatkus) – the third book in the Empyrean series – in the latest data from Nielsen Bookscan’s Total Consumer Market (TCM). 

The £25 (RRP) hardback has sold 155,141 copies – bringing in a staggering £2.3m through the tills of booksellers across the country – delivering the biggest single week sales since Prince Harry’s memoir Spare (Transworld) was released in January 2023. Not only that, Onyx Storm is the top fiction number one since Harper Lee’s Go Set a Watchman (Cornerstone) sold 168,455 copies in its first week nearly a decade ago – and it has become the fastest selling Science Fiction and Fantasy title since records began, with Yarros snatching the crown from… well, herself.

In addition, Little, Brown said the e-book edition had shifted a further 175,000 copies across the markets the publisher sells into.

In print, sales of Onyx Storm are 171.9% up compared with Iron Flame’s first week – when it sold 57,055 copies back in November 2023 – which itself was up 1,311.2% versus Fourth Wing’s first week sales of 4,043 when it was first published in May 2023.

Both hardback editions of the previous titles in the series have sold 211,000 copies to date – a number which Onyx Storm has already achieved 73.5% of and could overtake in its second week. 

Yarros fever has also spread to the Mass Market Fiction chart with sales of the Fourth Wing paperback rising 87.1% to 12,433 copies, putting it at number one, just ahead of Iron Flame which itself has seen sales jump 47.9% to 10,099 copies sold.

The Empyrean series can’t quite do the triple though with FairyLoot’s Young Adult pick for January – Sophie Clark’s Cruel is the Light (Penguin) – selling 13,303 copies in its first week on sale, the only other title to sell more than 10,000 copies this week.

FairyLoot’s adult subscription box title – last week’s number one Sue Lynn Tan’s Immortal (Harper Voyager) – has seen a 95.8% drop in sales with just 540 copies passing through booksellers’ hands, dropping 678 places in the chart. A fellow subscription box title – Samantha Scott Yambao’s Water Moon (Bantam) – also dropped, though not as dramatically, managing to remain in the Original Fiction chart with sales of 899 copies, a drop of 89.7%. 

While categorised as Young Adult, Clark’s debut means the top four is comprised solely of Romantic Fantasy, helping the genre take 10 slots in the Official UK Top 50.

The biggest selling non-romantasy title is The List of Suspicious Things by Jennie Godfrey which rounds off the top five with 9,846 copies sold in the last seven days, down 12.4% compared with the previous week. 

Simon Squibb’s What’s Your Dream? (Century) sold 7,891 copies according to the latest TCM data, a drop of 19.4% on its first week, but it holds on to first place in the Hardback Non-Fiction chart (HBNF). 

While Onyx Storm has made a huge splash, though it is generally a quiet week for new releases in the Original Fiction chart with the second-biggest new release being Catherine Airey’s debut Confessions (Viking) shifting 810 copies, putting it in 19th place.

The biggest new Non-Fiction title is Daniel Levitin’s Music as Medicine (Cornerstone) which only just scrapes into the HBNF chart with 1,261 copies sold. It is Levitin’s first hardback release since 2020’s The Changing Mind (Penguin Life) which sold 2,244 copies in its first week – 78.1% more than his 2025 offering.

James Clear’s Atomic Habits (Random House Business) sees sales fall 13.3% to 6,243, but it’s enough to rise to first place in the Paperback Non-Fiction chart with last week’s number one – Jessie Inchauspé’s The Glucose Goddess Method (New River Books) falling 44.8% to fifth place.

Despite Onyx Storm’s record-breaking performance the market has shrunk 0.6% to a total of 3.1 million books sold. The ASP has risen though helping value grow 0.7% to £30m – of which Yarros’ latest represents 7.7%.

Compared to the same week in 2024, volume sales are up 2% with value rising 4.4%.