Rebecca Yarros’s ‘Onyx Storm is the fastest-selling adult novel in the past 20 years. The book, the third in a series, has sold 2.7 million copies in its first week and is topping every bestseller list. The three novels, part of Yarros’ planned five-book Empyrean series, have sold more than 12 million print, e-books, and audiobooks in the United States, according to her publisher, Entangled.
Yarros now holds the top three spots on The New York Times’s hardcover best-seller list, an incredible achievement for an adult fiction series. On Thursday, her series also claimed the top three spots on Amazon’s “most sold” fiction list.
The reviews are generally positive, but Onyx Storm has deeply confused many readers. Some of that seems unintentional; the first few chapters are packed with new characters, knotty political conflicts, and unfamiliar locations that don’t appear on the map. (Is Lewellen a person or a place? Turns out, both!) However, the ending was cryptic, as Yarros loves a shocking cliffhanger. “I already know what it is before I start the book and drive for it with glee,” she told Good Morning America.
It’s wild. I’m humbled by it. It’s wild. I don’t think it’s registered,” Yarros told Variety in the middle of her whirlwind tour of sold-out Q&As and morning-show appearances to promote the book, “I’ll probably burst into tears at home when I’m in real life with my children and husband. But right now, it’s like two different segments of my life.”
Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
