Divorce becomes number one today: Freida McFadden’s done it again
Freida McFadden has climbed to the top of the Official UK Top 50 for the seventh time – and sixth time this year – with her latest thriller, The Divorce (Poisoned Pen Press), going straight to number one at the first time of asking, according to the latest data from NielsenIQ BookData’s Total Consumer Market (TCM).
The 39,025 copies it has sold marks a new record for McFadden, beating the first week of January’s Dear Debbie by 2.9% – the author’s previous biggest single sales week. Not just that, it has inspired readers to explore more of McFadden’s backlist, with five other titles re-entering the Official Top 50, bringing her total entries in the Top 50 this week to seven.
In a week where McFadden seems to have scared off other contenders, the next highest new release is Lucy Steeds’ The Artist. After being announced as the Waterstones book of the year in 2025, the hardback editions went on to sell a combined total of 79,762 copies, but the paperback edition only manages 3,640 copies in week one. That gives it 40th position in the Top 50, but is not enough to make the Mass-Market Fiction (MMF) Top 20 which has Emily Henry’s Great Big Beautiful Life sitting in 20th place having sold 4,300 copies.
Fiction titles dominate the Official UK Top 10 once again with Richard Osman’s The Impossible Fortune sticking in second place, despite sales falling more than a fifth to 20,905 copies this week. Bob Mortimer and Ruth Jones both move up the charts in their second week on sale – while sales for Mortimer’s The Long Shoe (Gallery) are more or less flat, with just an additional 28 copies this week, Jones has seen sales of By Your Side jump more than quarter to 13,246 copies.
Continues…
Read More
The Names – The British Book Award-winning debut from Florence Knapp (Phoenix) – rounds off the TCM Top 5 with 3.8% increase in sales, taking it to 10,792 copies.
Along with Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke (4th Estate), it is one of only two books inside the Top 10 not to have been published in May. Burke moves up five places in the TCM to claim ninth position following a 2.2% boost to sales – 7,762 copies is enough to take first place in the Original Fiction Top 20.
Just behind Yesteryear in the overall ranking of the week is Sticker Dolly Dressing K-POP by Lesley Sims and Sandrine Lamour (Usborne) – the biggest-selling children’s book of the week sold 7,453 copies during half term week across England and Wales, down 13.1%.
One title benefitting – probably – from the sizzling temperatures of last week was Jamie Oliver’s BBQ (Michael Joseph). It has sold enough copies to keep it in first place in the Hardback Non-Fiction (HBNF) Top 20 for another week, although it has cooled by 35.1% to 4,925 copies in the past seven days.
There are just three non-fiction titles in the Official UK Top 50 this week – Oliver is the biggest of those coming in at 18th place, while Patrick Radden Keefe’s London Falling (Picador) rises to 28th, keeping second place in the HBNF Top 20 with its own sales climbing 5.7% to 4,262 copies this week.
Keefe sits 15 places ahead of Andrew Lownie’s Entitled which falls to 43rd place in the TCM, but manages to keep hold of its position at the peak of the Paperback Non-Fiction Top 20, even though its sales have plummeted 47.1% in its second week on sale to 3,480 copies.
The heatwave has led to volume sales dropping 1.1% to three million books this week, with value falling 3.7% to £28.6m.
Volume sales have dropped a sharp 9.9% compared with the same week in 2025, with value sales faring slightly better, down 7.3%.
