Despite a stonking \u00a330 RRP, the latest Robert Galbraith \u2013 pen name of Harry Potter author JK Rowling \u2013 has gone straight to the top of the Official UK Top 50, according to the latest data from NielsenIQ BookScan\u2019s Total Consumer Market (TCM)..<\/p>\n
A total of 53,207 copies of The Hallmarked Man (Sphere) were sold in its first week on sale \u2013 with its average selling price (ASP) of \u00a315.47 a little under half price \u2013 making it the fourth biggest number one of the year behind Onyx Storm by Rebecca Yarros<\/a> (Piatkus), Sunrise on the Reaping by Suzanne Collins (Scholastic) and World Book Day title Bluey\u2019s Little Book (Ladybird).<\/p>\n The Hallmarked Man is the eighth in the Cormoran Strike series and while it has not quite matched the series\u2019 biggest first week sales \u2013 Troubled Blood sold 64,663 copies back in September 2020 \u2013 it has managed to beat the previous title in the series, improving on 2023\u2019s The Running Grave\u2019s 50,925 copies by 4.5%.<\/p>\n Galbraith dethrones RF Kuang from the number one spot,\u00a0pushing Katabasis (HarperVoyager) down to seventh<\/a> in the TCM following an 82.8% drop in sales in its second week. With 7,521 copies sold in the past seven days, Katabasis does hang onto second in the Original Fiction Top 20 (OF), just ahead of Adam Kay\u2019s A Particularly Nasty Case which notched up 6,204 copies this week \u2013 55.5% down on its launch week.<\/p>\n Runner-up in TCM Top 50 is\u00a0Fearful (Simon & Schuster), the second companion book to be released for Lauren Roberts\u2019 Powerless trilogy<\/a>. With 16,518 unit-sales, it is someway off Galbraith\u2019s figure, but it is enough to snare the Children\u2019s number one, even if it cannot match the 43,087 copies that the concluding part to the trilogy, Fearless, managed in April this year.<\/p>\n AF Steadman\u2019s <\/a>Skandar and the Spirit War<\/a> sheds 74.1% of its sales week-on-week to drop to fourth in the Children\u2019s chart with 4,702 copies, following its debut in pole position. Coco Wyo\u2019s Cozy Corner sticks in second place with 5,333 copies, just 186 units ahead of JB Priestley\u2019s An Inspector Calls which has seen sales rise 159.8% as the reading list staple makes its annual return to the bestseller list.<\/p>\n