Rebecca Yarros Books

Rebecca Yarros had written more than twenty books before the world learned her name. For a decade she was a respected contemporary romance author, a military spouse writing love stories shaped by deployments, grief, and resilience in series like Flight and Glory. That back catalog matters: it is where she learned to write chemistry that feels lived-in and stakes that hurt, and both skills came with her when she finally wrote the dragon book.

Fourth Wing, published by Red Tower Books in April 2023, is that dragon book. Violet Sorrengail, small and brittle-boned in a war college designed to kill its students, walked into Basgiath and the genre has not been the same since. The novel became one of the fastest-selling fantasy debuts in memory, and the follow-ups only accelerated: Iron Flame in November 2023, then Onyx Storm in January 2025, which posted the biggest opening week for an adult novel in roughly two decades. Bookstores held midnight releases. For a fantasy novel. That did not used to happen.

Part of what sets Yarros apart is what she put of herself in the story. She lives with Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, a connective tissue disorder, and Violet's chronic condition is written from the inside: a heroine whose body is a daily negotiation, in a genre that mostly writes bodies as invincible. Readers with chronic illnesses noticed, and the loyalty that representation earned is a real part of why the fandom runs so deep. The other part is simpler: the woman writes tension like she is being paid per heartbeat, and the Violet-Xaden dynamic is the modern benchmark for enemies-to-lovers with actual enemies in it.

The Empyrean is planned as five books, and the current gap between installments is the most closely watched wait in the genre. Yarros began drafting book four in early 2026 and has confirmed it will carry at least four points of view, including Violet, Xaden, Dain, and Ridoc, along with a warning that someone readers love will not survive it. Meanwhile a surprise Empyrean title, teased as neither book four nor the graphic novel, lands September 29, 2026, and Amazon has given Fourth Wing a full series order with Michael B. Jordan among the producers and Lisa Joy directing the pilot.

If you are starting fresh, read in publication order and clear your calendar; these are five-hundred-page books that read like two hundred. Every Empyrean book we track is below, with spice ratings so you know exactly what you are walking into. Short version: it earns its 3 to 4 out of 5, and the scenes are load-bearing.

A common question from new readers is whether the contemporary romance backlist is worth reading while waiting for the next Empyrean book, and the answer is yes with a caveat: expect a different kind of pain. Books like The Things We Leave Unfinished and Great and Precious Things are grounded, grief-heavy love stories without a dragon in sight, but the emotional architecture is recognizably the same author. Her military romance series In the Likely Event and the Flight and Glory books show exactly where the Fourth Wing banter came from.

For the Empyrean itself, the order is simple: Fourth Wing, Iron Flame, Onyx Storm, and then the wait, which the fandom has turned into a genre of content in its own right. Go in as unspoiled as possible; the series runs on twists, and at least one per book has broken the internet on release week. Read the codex entries and chapter epigraphs, which hide more than they appear to. And if you are among the people who bounced off the first hundred pages of Fourth Wing wondering what the fuss was about, the consensus advice is to reach the Threshing before deciding. Almost nobody quits after it. All three published Empyrean books are below with our ratings, and the trending page tracks every scrap of confirmed news about book four and the September surprise release.