Sarah J Maas Novel Sets UK Adult Fantasy Sales Record

By Daniel Okafor

Sarah J Maas has broken the UK record for adult fantasy. Her novel A Court of Splintered Harmony sold 188,914 copies between publication on 27 October and 31 October, according to NielsenIQ BookData. That makes it the fastest-selling adult fantasy novel since accurate records began in 1998.

It's also the fastest-selling hardback since Dan Brown's Inferno, which sold 229,000 copies in its first week in 2013. Brown still holds the hardback crown. Maas now holds everything else.

Whose record did she take?

Rebecca Yarros's Onyx Storm was the previous holder, with 155,141 copies in its opening week in January 2025. Maas beat that by roughly 34,000 copies in a week that ran from a Sunday to a Friday.

"Harry Potter has the record for the highest ever weekly sale for a fantasy novel, but it's the biggest sale since our records began [in 1998] for an adult fantasy novel," said Philip Stone of NielsenIQ. Rowing owns the overall record, in other words; the adult shelf belongs to Maas.

Her publisher, Bloomsbury, puts the achievement wider. A Court of Splintered Harmony, the sixth book in Maas's A Court of Thorns and Roses (Acotar) series and her first return to it in more than five years, delivered the biggest single week for any adult fiction title in the UK since Harper Lee's Go Set a Watchman in 2015.

The novel went straight to No 1 in the UK's overall book chart — Maas's third time at the top. Her previous visit, in January 2024 with House of Flame and Shadow from her Crescent City series, managed 44,761 opening-week copies. This one quadrupled it.

How big is romantasy now?

Maas is one of the most prominent writers of romantasy, the genre blending romance and fantasy that has come to dominate bestseller lists in recent years. Romance and fantasy sales helped UK fiction revenue pass £1bn for the first time in 2024. Much of the growth has played out on TikTok, where hashtags related to Maas have more than 14bn combined views. The genre's readers are largely young women.

Globally, A Court of Splintered Harmony sold 1.7m copies in preorders and first-day sales, Bloomsbury said — a figure covering English-language print and ebooks in the US, Canada, the UK and Australia, but not audiobooks or translations. Maas's global English-language sales across all her series now exceed 100m copies.

The demand showed up in person, not just in spreadsheets. Bookshops across the UK hosted parties and opened past midnight. Waterstones alone ran 60 midnight launches plus 80 early openings and release-day parties.

"As one of our most pre-ordered books of the year, excitement for Splintered Harmony was at fever pitch, and the astounding first week of sales has reflected this," said Lucy Jakes, Waterstones's science fiction and fantasy buyer. "It was amazing to see the hype translate into thousands of Sarah J Maas fans gathering in bookshops."

Acotar is one of the biggest franchises in publishing. The first book, a reimagining of Beauty and the Beast, appeared in 2015; the sequels follow Feyre through the faerie realm of Prythian.

The record may not survive the winter. A Court of Splintered Harmony is the first part of a four-part story, and the next two parts arrive in A Court of Forgotten Melody, out on 12 January.