The sixth Acotar novel sold 188,914 copies in the UK in its first week, according to NielsenIQ BookData, beating the previous adult fantasy record set by Onyx Storm.
Sarah J Maas's A Court of Splintered Harmony has become the fastest-selling adult fantasy novel in the UK since accurate records began in 1998, according to figures from NielsenIQ BookData reported by The Guardian. The sixth book in her A Court of Thorns and Roses (Acotar) series, and her first return to the saga in more than five years, sold 188,914 copies between publication day on 27 October and 31 October. That also makes it the fastest-selling hardback novel since Dan Brown's Inferno, which sold 229,000 copies in its first week in 2013, and it went straight to No 1 in the UK's overall book chart.
The new total comfortably surpasses the previous adult fantasy record held by Rebecca Yarros's Onyx Storm, which sold 155,141 copies in its opening week in January 2025. Bloomsbury, Maas's publisher, says the book amassed the biggest single week of sales for any adult fiction title in the UK since Harper Lee's Go Set a Watchman in 2015. Philip Stone of NielsenIQ noted that Harry Potter still holds the record for the highest weekly sale for any fantasy novel. According to Bloomsbury, the book also sold 1.7 million copies globally in pre-orders and first-day sales across English-language print and ebook editions in the US, Canada, the UK and Australia, a figure that excludes audiobooks and translations.
The result underlines the commercial weight of romantasy, the blend of romance and fantasy whose growth has been driven largely by young women readers and by TikTok, where Maas-related hashtags have more than 14 billion combined views. Waterstones hosted 60 midnight launches and 80 early openings and release-day parties, and its fantasy buyer Lucy Jakes said the hype translated into thousands of fans gathering in bookshops. The novel is the first part of a four-part story, with the next two parts due in A Court of Forgotten Melody on 12 January. The sales figures are as reported by NielsenIQ and Bloomsbury and cover only the first week on sale.
