The Bookseller - Bestsellers - Critical Maas: Is this real life? Is this just fantasy?

It is timely to start with Rebecca Yarros, as the third book in her Empyrean series - Onyx Storm - is published this week, while Fourth Wing and Iron Flame are sitting atop the Fantasy charts so far for 2025.

First published in hardback in 2023, the first two books in the series were released in paperback in 2024, with Fourth Wing placing 11th in the full-year chart, selling just shy of 250,000 copies. The paperback of Iron Flame was only released in November and has shifted 78,586 copies in its first nine weeks - 7.4% down on the equivalent period for its predecessor.

With Yarros' threequel set to storm the Original Fiction chart next week - and two more books expected in the series, although not yet announced - it is likely that Yarros will continue to be an immovable presence in the chart, not just in the fantasy genre, but at the top of the Fiction charts as well.