Her Novel Is the Fastest Seller in 20 Years

She's a niche writer, but it's a niche that keeps expanding for Rebecca Yarros. Onyx Storm, her latest novel in the "romantasy" genre is now the fastest-selling adult fiction title in 20 years, reports the New York Times, citing stats from Circana BookScan. The book is the third in Yarros' five-book Empyrean series, which is set at a military academy in a fantasy world that features dragons. Onyx Storm sold 2.7 million copies in its first week, and Yarros now holds the top three spots on the New York Times best-seller list. "It doesn't feel real, none of it does," Yarros told nearly 2,000 fans—many adorned in Empyrean-themed costumes—who packed into an auditorium in St. Paul, Minn., this week.

• Amazon is adapting the series for TV, and Netflix is adapting Yarros' romance novel In the Likely Event, notes Elle, which interviews the author.
• "I like romance because I've been in love with the same guy since I was 19," she tells the magazine. "That's it; he's it. We have six kids. But when I read a romance, I can fall in love over and over and over. It's the same brain chemicals," she explains. "So even though I'm in a very happy marriage, I can slip into a romance novel and get a boost of those endorphins."
• Yarros, 43, struggles with a connective tissue disorder called Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, and it helped inspire her first book in the series, Fourth Wing, which features a protagonist with a chronic illness that can leave her debilitated, per the Times.

(More Rebecca Yarros stories.)