7 Of the top 10 BookScan sellers of 2021 are Adult Fiction titles
Year-to-date Heatseekers Top 20 Exciting Times at the summit for Dolan
unlucky timing. The hardback was published right in the midst of the first lockdown, and the paperback’s first two weeks were on sale at the very end of the third one. Frank Herbert’s Dune scored
second in the Heatseekers chart, ahead of its film adaptation drop- ping in the UK next month. Sales of the classic sci-fi title have rocketed (sorry) since the trailer was first released in 2020. The hype may be enough to nudge Dune into the Top 50 for the first time since BookScan records began in 1998.
Though Exciting Times’ sales through BookScan are remarkably strong for a début, it’s likely sold many more units
In the spotlight
LEFT ‘DEATH IN PARADISE’ CREATOR ROBERT THOROGOOD HAVE SOLD STRONGLY
LAURA IMAI MESSINA AND Emma Stonex’s first novel
The Lamplighters is the highest- charting hardback in the Fiction Heatseekers chart. It’s common that a début author stops by the chart in hardback before its paperback zooms straight into the Top 50—the Heatseeker chart has previously been graced by Sarah Perry’s The Essex Serpent and Gail Honeyman’s Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine on their way to superstardom. However, 2021’s chart is nota-
Title
1 Exciting Times 2 Dune
3 The Marlow Murder Club 4 The Lamplighters 5 Mayflies
7 The Phone Box at the Edge... 8 Meet Me in Hawaii 9 The River Between Us 10 A Sister’s War
11 If I Can’t Have You 12 Meet Me in London
13 A Gentleman in Moscow 14 The Rock
15 A Theatre for Dreamers 16 Sorrow and Bliss
17 Red, White & Royal Blue 18 Love After Love
19 Nineteen Eighty-Four 20 The Passenger
TheBookseller.com Author Imprint
Naoise Dolan W&N Frank Herbert Hodder Robert Thorogood HQ Emma Stonex Picador
Andrew O’Hagan Faber & Faber
ISBN (+978) Volume 1474613460 0340960196 0008435912 1529047318 0571273713
6 The Priory of the Orange Tree Samantha Shannon Bloomsbury 1408883358 Laura Imai Messina Manilla Georgia Toffolo Mills & Boon
1786580412 0008375881
Liz Fenwick HQ 0008290573 Molly Green Avon
0008332501
Charlotte Levin Pan 1529032420 Georgia Toffolo Mills & Boon Amor Towles Windmill L J Ross
Dark Skies
Polly Samson Bloomsbury Meg Mason W&N
Casey McQuiston Saint Martin’s... Ingrid Persuad Faber & Faber George Orwell William Collins Ulrich A Boschwitz Pushkin
0008375850 0099558781 1912310180 1526600592 1474622974 1250316776 0571356225 0008322069 1782275381
30,174 24,942 23,200 20,923 20,516 20,088 19,969 19,621 19,150 18,765 18,665 18,265 18,158 17,168 17,016 16,874 16,846 16,729 16,193 16,132
bly low on hardback titles. Either the reopening of high street bookshops, the slowly closing gap between hardback and paperback r.r.p.s and the much slimmer chance of having to lug a
hardback on to the Tube five days a week is perhaps persuading more people to buy fiction titles in hardback, therefore bypassing the Heatseekers chart altogether. Or, début hardbacks released early in the year, riding the New Year “books of 2021” wave, have been denied their first flush of sales by the lockdown gaps.
Date Range 14th March to 11th September 2021 Source Nielsen
The Phone Box at the Edge of the World Laura Imai Messina, Lucy Rand (trans) Manilla Translated fiction is Heatseekers catnip, especially Japanese fiction. The Phone Box at the Edge of the World joins Toshikazu Kawaguchi’s Before the Coffee Gets Cold and Genki Kawamuru’s If Cats Disappeared from the World as a Heatseeker hit.
A Gentleman in Moscow Amor Towles Windmill
Good luck finding a Heatseekers story that
doesn’t mention A Gentleman in Moscow. The title is the ultimate Heatseeker, once again charting in the year-to-date chart. In fact, it’s barely left the weekly top 20 since publication in 2017.
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