How Big Was Sarah J. Maas’s A Court of Splintered Harmony Debut?

Sarah J. Maas’s A Court of Splintered Harmony sold 958,195 U.S. hardcovers in its opening week and set a U.K. opening-week record for adult fantasy. Bloomsbury separately reported about 1.7 million copies at launch, a tally that combined preorders and release-day purchases across four markets. The sixth A Court of Thorns and Roses book arrived on October 27, 2026.

The U.S. debut was nearly a million hardcovers

Splintered Harmony opened at No. 1 in the U.S. In its November 6 report, Publishers Weekly called it the biggest debut of 2026 to that point. One comparison shows just how far ahead it was: the hardcover outsold the next 78 titles on the publication’s bestseller list combined.

That chart gives a view of how the book performed against everything else on shelves that week. The publisher’s launch tally answers a different question: how much demand had built up by release day across its four reported markets.

The U.K. debut broke the adult fantasy record

NielsenIQ BookData tracked 188,914 U.K. copies in five days. That surpassed the previous adult fantasy opening-week record, held by Rebecca Yarros’s Onyx Storm at 155,141. The difference was 33,773 copies, or about 22%. The record covers NielsenIQ’s U.K. tracking period, which began in 1998.

There’s also a comparison within Maas’s own backlist. Her previous U.K. No. 1, the Crescent City novel House of Flame and Shadow, sold 44,761 copies in its opening week in 2024. The new ACOTAR book opened at more than four times that figure.

What did the 1.7 million launch figure count?

Bloomsbury included orders placed before publication alongside purchases on October 27. The tally covers English-language print books and ebooks in the U.S., Canada, the U.K. and Australia. Audiobooks and translations fall outside that count. The three figures in the table overlap and should be read separately.

More than five years passed between A Court of Silver Flames and Splintered Harmony. This time, readers have a much shorter wait. Bloomsbury has scheduled A Court of Forgotten Melody, the seventh ACOTAR book, for January 12, 2027. Catch up with our guide to A Court of Splintered Harmony or, if you’ve finished the book, read our spoiler-filled recap.

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