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A Court of Thorns and Roses
Book series by Sarah J. Maas From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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A Court of Thorns and Roses is a fantasy romance series by American author Sarah J. Maas, which follows the journey of 19-year-old Feyre Archeron after she is brought into the faerie lands of Prythian. The first book of the series, A Court of Thorns and Roses, was released in May 2015. The series centers on Feyre's adventures across Prythian and the faerie courts, following the epic love story and fierce struggle that ensues after she enters the fae lands. There are five novels in the series, and a sixth installment, confirmed by Maas, is in the works.
The series has sold over 13 million copies and is a New York Times Best Seller, with the fifth book, A Court of Silver Flames, making it to the number one spot on the fiction best seller list.[1] The series has been nominated for eight Goodreads Choice Awards, winning three, and has been featured on nearly a dozen publications' year-end "best of" lists for fantasy and/or young adult (YA) fiction.
In March 2021, it was announced that Disney's 20th Television would be producing a television adaptation of the series for Hulu, co-created by Maas and Outlander creator Ronald D. Moore,[2] but Hulu cancelled the project in February 2025. Maas is reportedly looking to shop the show to other studios after Disney's rights expire in mid 2025.[3]
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Books
Main
Companions
- A Court of Thorns and Roses Coloring Book (2017)[14]
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Development
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Maas initially intended the series as a retelling of the fairy tales Beauty and the Beast, East of the Sun and West of the Moon, and Tam Lin. These tales inspired the finished series, though it was not ultimately a dedicated retelling.[15]
She began writing A Court of Thorns and Roses in early 2009, with the first draft taking about five weeks to complete.[16]
A Court of Mist and Fury's first draft was written entirely in a split point of view between Feyre and Rhysand.[17] The second book went through multiple name changes, including A Court of Wind and Stone, A Court of Calm and Fury, A Court of Stars and Smoke, A Court of Wings and Stars, A Court of Venom and Silver and A Court of Stars and Frost.[18] Like the first novel, the second is based upon multiple fairy tales and myths, including Hades and Persephone, with the Greek mythology-inspired characters such as Rhysand and Feyre and their home in the Night Court.[19] Other fairy tale inspirations include Hansel and Gretel, which spawned the character of the Weaver,[18] and the Book of Exodus, which loosely inspired parts of the backstory for Miryam and Drakon.[17]
The final cover of A Court of Wings and Ruin was designed by Adrian Dadich, with the dress pictured on the cover originally designed by Charlie Bowater and later adapted by Dadich.[20]
On July 12, 2016, Entertainment Weekly reported that Maas was writing five new books for the series, that would include two novellas and three further novels which would be set before and after the first trilogy.[21][22]
In 2020, the series was reprinted and published by Bloomsbury with new illustrated covers.[23] A Court of Thorns and Roses has existed between the Young Adult and New Adult fiction categories since the publication of the first book.[24] At the time A Court of Thorns and Roses was published, the New Adult categorization had not caught on the way publishers hoped it would. Maas agreed to publish the book as YA so long as her editor did not censor any of the sexual content.[24] The A Court of Thorns and Roses series is now classified as New Adult.[25]
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Reception
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Critical and commercial reception
In a Vox article titled "Why half the people you know are obsessed with this book series," senior correspondent Constance Grady wrote of A Court of Thorns and Roses: "These books go down like candy, silly and frothy and compulsively readable.... What is liveliest about Maas's writing, though, is how well she knows her formula. Maas is a genius at cramming her books with the tropes of her hybrid genre — and then subverting those tropes just enough to thrill." Grady notes of this method, “journalist Derek Thompson identifies a simple formula for popularity. Human beings, Thompson writes, tend to like things that are pleasingly familiar, with a gentle touch of surprise.” Grady named Maas as romantasy's "reigning queen", and commended her worldbuilding in ACOTAR for being full of "hat tips" to fantasy classics.[26]
A Court of Thorns and Roses, like all of Maas's book series, is a New York Times bestseller.[27] On March 7, 2021, the fifth book, A Court of Silver Flames made it to the number one listing on The New York Times Best Sellers List for fiction (combined print and e-books category).[1]
Maas's books have sold over 38 million copies in English worldwide and have been published in 38 languages.[27] Furthermore, the book is ranked the second most sold book in 2024 according to Publishers Weekly.[28]
Popularity and fandom
While Sarah J Maas has many popular books, according to Vox, "[o]f all Maas's series, A Court of Thorns and Roses (ACOTAR) is her crown jewel...Among fans, it is her most beloved work, the only Maas series so popular that it's spawned its own spinoff novels. They say that ACOTAR has reignited their childhood love of reading, that these are the books that make other books feel worthwhile."[26]
The Independent has credited Maas's success at least in part due to the fact she "was ahead of the game when it came to the rising appetite for empowering female heroines".[29] This has clearly resonated with fans, particularly among women: "already there are fans with Maas-related tattoos, Etsy heaves with merch bearing quotes from Maas's novels, and colouring book editions exist for each series."[29]
The ACOTAR books have inspired a passionate fanbase that is very active on social media (especially TikTok), where an organic community of Maas readers have formed and helped spread her books to new audiences.[27] The Independent described Maas as a "leading force" in the romantasy genre beloved by BookTok, reporting that as of May 2024, TikTok posts about her books had been viewed over 14 billion times.[29] As of February 2024, the TikTok tag "#acotar" had generated 8.9 billion views.[26] And, as Business Insider noted, this online community has made her books more popular than ever: "Publishers Weekly reported that sales of her new titles and backlist increased 86% in the 2022 fiscal year amid TikTok's massive growth."[27]
A Court of Thorns and Roses was one of the most borrowed titles in American public libraries during 2023 and 2024.[30]
Awards
Accolades
Bans in the United States
In 2022, according to the American Library Association's Office of Intellectual Freedom, A Court of Mist and Fury was tied for the tenth-most banned and challenged book in the United States. In 2023 a school district in Mason City, Iowa, made international news when they banned the book from library shelves after running a list of books through ChatGPT and asking it if the books, "contain a description or depiction of a sex act".[49][50][51]
In 2023, the Central Media Advisory Committee for Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools in North Carolina voted to ban A Court of Frost and Starlight, the fourth installment in the series. The committee declares responsibility for the "review and removal of books" as a result of material that is "educationally unsuitable, pervasively vulgar or obscene, or inappropriate to the age, maturity or grade level of students". The book is still accessible online, but students can be denied access due to parental controls.[52]
In February 2024, individuals in the Rutherford County Schools (RCS) library system in Tennessee were "...quietly instructed by higher ups to remove 20 books from all RCS library shelves", with the entirety of this five-book series being included among those twenty selections; an internal review by RCS determined that two of those twenty titles did not meet the standard for obscenity as defined by Tennessee state law and were accordingly allowed to remain upon school shelves. The removal of the eighteen remaining books occurred without seeking input from librarians and without due process policy for the school system being applied; as of mid-March 2024, all of those eighteen books (still including this entire series) remain off RCS shelves.[53] The Rutherford County Library Alliance, a nonprofit organization whose mission statement defines them as being "...dedicated to safeguarding the principles of intellectual freedom and unrestricted access to information within the public library system of Rutherford County, Tennessee",[54] is in the process of challenging removal of the books.[55]
In 2024, all five books in the series were among 13 banned from all Utah public schools by the state school board for allegedly containing "objective sensitive material". One additional Maas book, Empire of Storms, was also banned.[56]
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Adaptations
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Film and television
In November 2017, A Court of Thorns and Roses was optioned by Jo Bamford's and Piers Tempest's Tempo Productions.[57] The producers announced in 2018 that they had hired Rachel Hirons to work as the movie's screenwriter.[58][59]
In March 2021, it was announced that the series had been opted for a television adaptation by Disney's 20th Television for Hulu, with author Sarah J. Maas and Outlander creator Ronald D. Moore as the show's co-creators.[60] In November 2023, Moore told TVLine that the show was still in development and that they had written some scripts but were waiting on actors to move forward.[61] In February 2024, TVLine reported that the adaptation was no longer moving forward at Hulu and wasn't being shopped to other networks, while a Variety report the next day described the show's future as "extremely murky", as it technically was still in development at Hulu—just not in active development—and that the creators might try to take it elsewhere should Hulu cancel the project.[62][63]
On February 14, 2025, Variety reported that the adaptation had been officially scrapped by Hulu and that Maas was looking to take it to another studio after Disney's rights expire in mid-2025.[3]
Dramatized audiobooks
In 2022, a series of dramatized audiobooks by American company GraphicAudio was released, starring Melody Muze as Feyre, Henry W. Kramer as Tamlin, and Gabriel Michael as Lucien.[64][better source needed] The series was reviewed positively, and received a close following among cosplayers.[65]
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References
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