In 2026, the romantasy genre is still scorching hot on the page, and that’s especially true of its biggest series. Sarah J. Maas‘ wildly popular A Court of Thorns and Roses saga will heat things up just in time for the cooler months with the release of its sixth installment, A Court of Splintered Harmony, on October 27, and the seventh novel isn’t far behind, releasing in January. Not to be forgotten this fall is Rebecca Yarros‘ Empyrean universe, which, while not bringing the fourth novel in the buzzy Fourth Wing series, has a new collection of stories in Threshing Day, releasing on September 29. Before either of those launches, though, readers can already dig into the conclusion of a fantastical duology from one of the genre’s bestselling authors.
National Book Award-winning and #1 New York Times bestselling author Sabaa Tahir‘s new novel Empire was released on September 22, picking up where her first installment, Heir, left off earlier this year. The novels unfold in the same world as her wildly popular An Ember in the AshesYA romantasy series, introducing new characters 20 years after those stories conclude. In Empire, the same main trio returns, each facing their own conflicts in their ruthless reality of falling empires, breathtaking magic, world-threatening stakes, loyalty, and legacy. Collider can offer an exclusive excerpt from the first chapter of the official audiobook from Penguin Random House, which rewinds to first focus on one of the victims of the ancient evil Mother Div that set the present conflict into motion.
The chapter centers on the ten-year-old Ruh in the moments after his heart was devoured by Div after Aiz freed her. He winds up in The Waiting Place, where spirits are soothed by soul catchers before being sent into the afterlife, though he’s filled with fury over being betrayed by the woman who called herself Ilar. It seems like all is lost for him, but he has a fortunate encounter with the Bani al-Mauth, his grandmother, who isn’t about to let such a transgression pass. With help from the very power at the heart of The Waiting Place that protects their bloodline, she looks to restore him to life, but not before explaining how his mother recorded the story of Div that inadvertently led to his demise when it was used by Aiz. His horrifying death at Div’s hand was enough to spur the greater forces of the world into action, with Mauth itself agreeing to nourish his body and prepare him for his return so he can fix things and get vengeance.
Collider Exclusive · 8 Questions · 2 Minutes What Fantasy World Do You Belong To? Middle-earth · Grand Line · The Continent · Camp Half-Blood
Pick your magic, your crew, where you want to wake up and who you would rather be fighting, and we will tell you which world you actually belong in. Four are open to you: an ancient kingdom living through its last good age, an endless sea full of pirates, a continent that pays people to kill monsters, and a summer camp where the Greek gods are extremely real and mostly a nuisance.
💍Middle-earth(Rings of Power)
👒Grand Line(One Piece)
🐺The Continent(The Witcher)
🔱Camp Half-Blood(Percy Jackson)
01
What kind of power do you want? Every one of these worlds runs on a completely different sort of magic.
02
Who is travelling with you? Nobody gets through any of these stories entirely on their own.
03
Where do you want to wake up tomorrow? The best fantasy is usually just somewhere you would genuinely like to live.
04
How are you making a living out there? Even in fantasy somebody has to pay for the horse.
05
There is something in the woods. What do you do about it? All four of these worlds keep something unpleasant out there in the dark.
06
Who is the villain of your story? The enemy tells you far more about a world than the hero ever does.
07
What do you actually believe in out there? Every world hands its heroes one rule and asks them to hold onto it.
08
A thousand years from now, how are you remembered? Eight questions in, this is the one that decides your world.
The Map Is Drawn Your World Is…
Four worlds and four completely different ideas of what a good life
looks like. This is where you belong, what it would ask of you, and what you would get back in
return.
The Rings of Power · Prime Video · Since 2022
Middle-earth
You belong somewhere old enough that the mountains have names and
somebody can still tell you who gave them. Middle-earth is for people who think the right
thing is worth doing even when it will not be finished in their lifetime.
This is the only world on the list where doing good is understood as a very long defeat,
fought anyway, by people who will never see how it ends.
You are drawn to grandeur, to white cities and deep forges and the sense that almost
everything you touch is older than your entire family line.
The Rings of Power is set in the last good age before it all goes wrong, which gives
every quiet scene in it a slightly unbearable weight.
You would take the hard road, and you would take it on foot.
One Piece · Manga since 1997 · Netflix 2023
The Grand Line
You want the sea, a crew, and absolutely nobody telling you where
you are allowed to go. The Grand Line is the world for people whose main ambition in life is
finding out what is over there.
One Piece has run for decades on one very simple engine, which is a group of people who
each want something impossible and have decided to go and get it together.
You collect people. Your ideal crew is a set of misfits who were each written off
somewhere else before you turned up and offered them a better idea.
The world is enormous and deliberately ridiculous, and the emotional gut punches land
harder because of that rather than in spite of it.
You would set sail knowing the map runs out, which is more or less the entire point of
it.
The Witcher · Netflix · Since 2019
The Continent
You would rather be feared and useful than liked and useless. The
Continent is a world where the monsters are the straightforward part of the job and the
people are where it all gets complicated.
Witchers get paid to do what nobody else will and resented for existing at all, which is
a trade most people would refuse and you would probably accept.
You have no real illusions about which side is the good one, largely because on the
Continent that question tends to have a disappointing answer.
The best of these stories are not about the fighting. They are about somebody with a
rigid code being repeatedly cornered into caring about people.
You would take the coin, finish the job properly, and be out of town before the story
got told wrong.
Percy Jackson · Disney+ · Since 2023
Camp Half-Blood
You want the myths to be real and loose in the actual world, and
you want to find out at about thirteen that you were never anywhere near as ordinary as
everybody kept telling you.
Percy Jackson takes the oldest stories we have and drops them into car parks and diners,
which makes the gods considerably funnier and a great deal worse.
You would be the kid every school gave up on, who turns out to have been built for
something nobody thought to test for.
The series is genuinely about friendship rather than destiny, and it says so out loud
every time a prophecy tries to get in the way.
Camp Half-Blood is the real fantasy here: a place where the thing that made you
difficult everywhere else is the thing that makes you belong.
What Is ‘Empire’ About?
The excerpt sets Ruh up to make a big impact after death, but Empire‘s focus is primarily on its other converging stories. In the crumbling Martial Empire are crown prince Quil Farrar and his aunt, Empress Helene, who are facing their darkest hour. They’re on the losing end of a war with the Kegari horde as Quil’s armies crumble to dust, leaving him with little faith and a broken heart after the disappearance of his love and sending him on a journey to find aid from an uneasy ally. In the meantime, Sirsha navigates life with Div, now tethered to her and determined to devour her magic heart. Her affliction forces her to keep away from Quil while trying to find something in Div’s past that will allow her to pry herself free from the ancient evil. On the Kegari side, Cero bet-Dafra will find himself on the opposite side of his former leader, Aiz, as he scours ancient secrets and truths in hopes of seeing if his people can escape the cycle of violence. Aiz herself, however, continues a descent into madness, unsure what her next steps are after losing Mother Div.
Empire is now available for purchase. Check out our exclusive audiobook excerpt in the player above.
