It’s been a week since I finished Onyx Storm and nearly two weeks since I waited in line for my copy of the third book in Rebecca Yarros’ Empyrean Series. I’m already champing at the bit for more content, but unfortunately the prolific author will be taking a break from my favorite series in the near future. That may seem like bad news, but the author is also here to reassure fans when it comes to one worry about the book series and the upcoming Fourth Wing TV adaptation.
Should Fourth Wing Fans Be Worried The Show Will Catch Up To The Books?
Listen, I think any major fantasy reader probably has a little bit of fear in them about a show catching up to the books. A lot of us read George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire books (the next of which was supposed to come out in… 2016) or even Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander books, which will ultimately have a different conclusion than the TV show. In this case, given the series about Violet Sorrengail and co. just published its third book – of a reported five that will cap the series – and given the recent news that Yarros is taking a break from dragons and signets and Navarre in general, I know I’ve personally heard worry from friends.
The two key things they are nervous about?
- Is the show possibly going to wait to air so that Yarros has time to wrap on her novels?
- If they don’t wait, is it possible the show could catch up to the books?
I’ve personally worried about what is going on with the Fourth Wing TV adaptation given news has been slow to come down the pipeline (and we all know how the ACOTAR TV series turned out). However, at least when it comes to that second question, we can all calm down. In an interview with Variety, Yarros laid any fans’ concerns to rest about the latter question, noting the show has “no chance” of getting ahead of her book series,
The show has no chance of getting to Season 4 before I get to Book 4. The show has no chance in lapping me and I’ve already talked to Moira about that.
Whew. I’m glad she had such a clipped response about this as it makes me much more confident in a series eventually hitting my Amazon Prime subscription.
So, Why Is Rebecca Yarros Taking A Break From The Empyrean Series?
One thing Yarros has been very open about is taking a break after Onyx Storm. Following writing Fourth Wing and Iron Flame, the author went back to her contemporary romance roots and wrote Variation, which came out in October of 2024. She previously told The Today Show it helped ground her before writing the third book and made her feel confident, with the author even telling herself, ‘You can do this.’
She seems to be taking the same trajectory this time around, recently teasing a new contemporary romance idea that just “came” to her recently. She noted when she has new ideas for projects she thinks of it as a bit of a good luck charm, as well as a positive sign for her mental health, noting it means, ‘I’m healing from burnout.”
The plan is similar for this “break,” and fans should stop acting like she’s “gonna go lay on a beach” and treat it like a vacation year. She said, instead, that she’s simply looking for work-life balance.
I think people are scared that I’m gonna go lay on a beach for a year or something, when really what I want to do is get to an eight-hour work day, five days a week. I just want to get to where I go to work and I stop working when my kids are home, and I go to their hockey games, and I sleep in my bed with my husband, and my entire life isn’t based off of a deadline and trying to write thousands and thousands and thousands of words a day.
It’s a tough task when you are responsible for fiction so many people have latched onto. You want to do the material justice, but my copy of Onyx Storm is 544 pages, so getting that done quickly, particularly given all the Easter eggs and world-building that goes into these books, has to be a gigantic chore.
Clearly, it’s a stressor for the author, but after this interview, I’m at least way less worried about what these means for the TV show, which I fully expect to make the list of Amazon’s best shows. General Sorrengail would expect nothing less.
