What to expect from the third Fourth Wing book, Onyx Storm

Rebecca Yarros' bestselling series, "The Fourth Wing," concluded with a brutal cliffhanger when its second book was published over a year ago. Consequently, fans of the saga are eagerly awaiting the third installment in the planned five-book "Empyrean" series.

The long wait is nearly over, as "Onyx Storm" is set to be released tomorrow. This high-fantasy romance, featuring an "enemies-to-lovers" trope, is set in a parallel world filled with dragons and magic (and plenty of sex). Our protagonist is 20-year-old Violet Sorrengail, a precocious daughter of an army general.

The series is incredibly popular: "Fourth Wing" and its sequel, "Iron Flame," have consistently topped bestseller lists since their release and were the two most-read books on Goodreads in 2024. However, not everyone has embraced the hype.

Social media is awash with reader reviews deeming "Fourth Wing" overrated, unoriginal, and poorly written. And, as is the case with many writers who suddenly find fame, the internet has subjected Yarros to various forms of scrutiny in recent years.

So, what is the "Empyrean" series about? What can we expect from "Onyx Storm?" And are the criticisms of the author valid?

Rebecca Yarros' success was not overnight. Before the release of "Fourth Wing" in 2023, Yarros had been writing romance novels for years. The 43-year-old author published her first romance novel, "Full Measures," nearly a decade ago, in 2014. Since then, she has been a prolific writer, often releasing more than one book per year.

Prior to "Fourth Wing," the Colorado-based mother of six was more inclined to write John Green-esque adult romance novels that often drew on her experiences growing up in a military family and later as a military spouse, and touched on the enduring effects of war. The "Empyrean" series marks her first foray into "romantasy" – a term referring to books that blend romance and fantasy genres, and often include "smut" (internet slang for sex scenes in books). It is also her first real sustained success.

What is "Fourth Wing" about? (Spoilers ahead) Violet Sorrengail, who has spent her entire life training to become a scribe and who suffers from the same chronic illness as Yarros, is not expected to survive her graduation from Basgiath War College. However, we meet the protagonist of the "Empyrean" series at the start of her first year at this brutal school. There, cadets learn to ride dragons as the ultimate weapon against the neighboring nation of Poromiel, which Navarre has been at war with for 400 years.

Not only does Violet survive Basgiath, she thrives, bonding with two dragons in an unprecedented feat, and later develops the once-in-a-generation ability to wield lightning. At the same time, the existence of a second power is hinted at. Then there's the brooding Xaden Riorson, the shadow-wielding son of her mother's enemy, and leader of her new wing. If that wasn't complicated enough, Violet's dragon mates with Xaden's, binding the two riders together for life.

What is "Iron Flame" about? (More spoilers) The sequel to "Fourth Wing" follows Violet as she grapples with the fact that almost everything the students of Basgiath are fighting for is a lie, and that most of the people she trusts knew the truth and kept it from her, including Xaden. Poromiel isn't the enemy. That label belongs to the Venin, dark wielders who steal power from the earth (which is forbidden) and ride wyverns (a dark dragon variant), who Navarre's leaders have erased from history books.

"Iron Flame" ends on a heartbreaking cliffhanger: in a battle, in a desperate attempt to save Violet's life, Xaden sacrifices his soul and begins to turn into a Venin, the very evil they are fighting against. What do we know about "Onyx Storm" so far? Yarros has previously stated that she is interested in the way power corrupts, and that we can expect "Onyx Storm" to focus on whether Xaden can stop himself from becoming the enemy.

No one has ever come back from turning Venin. But that doesn't mean it's impossible – it definitely means Violet will try. In "Onyx Storm," she will venture beyond Navarre's failing wards in search of foreign allies to help fight the Venin and their wyverns. “This journey will test all of her wits, luck, and strength, but she will do anything to save what she loves—her dragons, her family, her home, and him,” the synopsis promises.

Along the way, we will also be explicitly told what her long-hinted-at second power actually is. (Though, according to Yarros, it was already revealed in "Iron Flame," we all just missed it.) Yarros has also revealed some compelling excerpts from "Onyx Storm," which you can find here, here, and here.

Why do some people dislike the "Fourth Wing" series? As a writer who made her name in the romance genre, Yarros is a somewhat controversial figure among romantasy readers who lean more towards the fantasy side of things. A plethora of reviews on her books' Goodreads pages complain that Yarros's pivot feels disingenuous and unoriginal, at a time when romantasy is one of the fastest-growing subgenres in publishing. One review declared "Fourth Wing" "the most blatant cash grab I've ever seen."

Others accuse Yarros of crossing the line between using genre tropes and plagiarism, with readers debating whether Yarros has borrowed elements of the "Empyrean" series from Sarah J. Maas' wildly popular "Throne of Glass" and Rebecca A. Kuang's less well-known "The Poppy War" series. But romantasy doesn't seem like a stretch for Yarros: her romance stories have always been high-stakes, and she is well-versed in writing about war, one of the hallmark narrative devices of fantasy stories. In 2023, Yarros told the New York Times that she has been a long-time reader of the genre and has wanted to start writing romantasy since her debut novel didn't sell as well as she had hoped.

And, in Yarros' case, the plagiarism accusations are just online chatter (this is not the case for other romantasy writers). Then there's the Israel-Gaza controversy. About a week after the events of October 7, 2023, rumors began circulating online that Yarros was pro-Israel after she was reported to have supported the translation of her books into Hebrew. In response, she shared a statement on her Instagram in which she "condemned violence" and stated that "children are not collateral damage." She also stated that refusing to translate books into Hebrew is the equivalent of "a (book) ban" that she "will always stand against."

Yarros turned off the comments on that post, but this didn't stop content creators from dissecting her remarks elsewhere. The Scottish Gaelic controversy followed closely behind. At a New York Comic Con event in late October 2023, the American author was asked to "clarify" the pronunciation of her character names, which were inspired by Scottish Gaelic. In a video that went viral on TikTok, a young Scottish Gaelic speaker pushed back against Yarros' appropriation and "severe mispronunciation" of the language. "Minority languages...deserve respect, especially from fantasy authors from America who choose to appropriate them to add a bit of spice and magic to their fantasy books because they can't come up with their own names for things," she said.

In response to the backlash, Yarros told Variety that she was "aware" she was wrong and "felt awful." Despite any and all of these controversies, Yarros still has a massive fanbase, who are desperate to know... when is the fourth book in the "Empyrean" series coming out? Though Yarros has confirmed there will be another book after "Onyx Storm," the answer is: we don't know when the as-yet-unnamed fourth book in the "Empyrean" series will be released. But Yarros did state in November 2023 that she would be slowing down a bit for health reasons. "Onyx Storm" will be released on January 21.