Author Robert Harris is experiencing a remarkable week, as his latest paperback Precipice (Cornerstone) debuts at number one in the official UK Top 50. This achievement coincides with a significant resurgence in sales for his earlier title, Conclave (Arrow), which has climbed nearly 600 positions in the market, according to NielsenIQ Bookscan’s Total Consumer Market (TCM).

This marks Harris’s first return to the top position since Archangel reached the spot in October 1999, selling 12,788 copies. With Precipice, he has surpassed that number, achieving sales of 13,190 copies in its initial week and outperforming the first-week sales of 2023’s Act of Oblivion by 34.8%.

In light of Pope Francis’s passing on Easter Monday, the film tie-in version of Conclave achieved remarkable success as well, moving 2,327 copies—a remarkable 268% increase from the previous week. However, its combined sales with the standard edition were insufficient to push it into this week’s top 50.

This week also marks a significant milestone for Harris as he claims the top position in the Mass Market Fiction (MMF) chart for the first time since 1999, outperforming Liane Moriarty’s new release Here One Moment, which debuted at second place with 9,607 copies sold—a 51% decrease compared to the first week sales of Apples Never Fall in 2022.

Additionally, the coming week signifies a decade since the launch of Sarah J. Maas’s A Court of Thorns and Roses (Bloomsbury). To commemorate this anniversary, Waterstones is releasing exclusive “Night Court” editions, resulting in all five books in the ACOTAR series returning to the MMF Top 20 with an impressive cumulative sales increase of 144.7%, totaling 36,896 copies sold for the week.

• The overall top 50 has experienced a 17% decline in unit sales compared to the previous week, with only two titles exceeding 10,000 copies sold, a decrease from nine in the lead-up to Easter.
• Aside from Precipice, the only other title to break the five-figure threshold is Suzanne Collins’ Sunshine on the Reaping (Scholastic), which sold 12,221 copies, marking a 29% week-on-week drop.

Several new titles are gaining traction in the Original Fiction (OF) chart, led by Emily Henry’s Great Big Beautiful Life (Viking), which sold 8,944 copies within its first three days, ranking seventh in the TCM chart. Despite a 5.3% rise in retail price, these sales reflect a 0.6% increase from Henry’s previous release, Funny Story.

The Hardback Non-Fiction segment also saw several new entries, led by Amy Sheppard’s Easy 10 (Quadrille) and the 2025 edition of Wisden Cricketer’s Almanack, which sold 4,933 copies this week—an increase of 34.6% over the 2024 edition. However, sales typically decline in the following days as most purchases occur at launch.

Despite recent successes, the overall Total Consumer Market (TCM) has recorded a notable week-on-week sales decline of 14.1%, resulting in 2.9 million books sold and a revenue of £27.4 million, which represents the lowest figure of the year thus far. This sales volume is also down by 4.9% compared to the same week last year, with the value experiencing a smaller drop of 3.9%.