Sarah J Maas novel sells out in minutes, crashes websites — SkimNews
Get the Culture newsletter
Daily culture — film, music, books, the trends and ideas worth your attention. Free.
- Sarah J Maas released A Court of Splintered Harmony, the first new installment in her A Court of Thorns and Roses series in over five years, which went on sale at 12.01am Tuesday after years of online anticipation.
- The Spicy Librarian sold 220 masquerade ball tickets in 13 minutes for a two-night event at Ragley Hall, crashing its website and ordering 750 copies to meet demand from attendees and pre-orders.
- Bad Girl Books hosted an impromptu midnight pyjama party in Oxford after a surprise queue formed, exceeding expectations and reflecting the passionate fanbase for the romantasy genre.
- Main Character Books doubled its initial order before release and reordered immediately after Tuesday sales, having decorated the entire London store for an evening celebration with 45 guests.
- Romantasy genre sales helped push UK fiction revenue above £1bn in 2024, driven largely by young female readers and amplified through TikTok, with Maas among its most dominant authors.
- A Court of Thorns and Roses series has sold 13 million copies by 2021 and is part of Maas’s broader body of work that has sold over 75 million books in 40 languages across three interconnected fantasy series.
Why it matters: Specialty romance bookshops are seeing record sales and turnout directly tied to Maas’s release, proving the commercial power of female-led fantastical narratives in physical retail — a rare feat in modern publishing. The scale of demand, from crashed websites to sold-out £149 events, signals a cultural shift where niche online fandoms now drive real-world economic impact.
Ask SkimNews
