Rebecca Yarros, who wrote Fourth Wing, signing books at the 2024 Library of Congress National Book Festival. Photo Edmond Joe for the Library of Congress, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons. No free image of the book's own cover art exists.
Fourth Wing
What it took directly
- statedFourth Wing (2023) took from her publisher's search for romantasy for its new-adult line"I knew my publisher was looking for romantasy in that new-adult line" Rebecca Yarros to Bryanna Cappadona, TODAY, June 22, 2023
- documentedFourth Wing (2023) comes from Entangled, Yarros's publisher, which loved the dragon pitch and launched a new fantasy imprint with it"To Yarros’s surprise, her publisher, Entangled, loved the idea, and wanted to launch a new fantasy imprint with it." Alexandra Alter, The New York Times, Nov. 6, 2023
- statedViolet Sorrengail's chronic illness took from the hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos syndrome that Yarros and her four sons all have"It was important to me to represent this chronic illness because my four sons and I all have the hypermobile type of Ehlers-Danlos." Rebecca Yarros to Health.com (Riyana Straetker), August 9, 2023
What it learned to do
- statedViolet Sorrengail's chronic illness learned from a big talk with Yarros's editor about representation, since EDS has 13 subtypes"So it was important to me when I brought the project to my editor, I said, “I would like to include this in there.” And we had a big talk about how representation works, especially because EDS has 13 subtypes." Rebecca Yarros to Bryanna Cappadona, TODAY, June 22, 2023
- documentedFourth Wing (2023) learned from the romances Yarros had built a career on, often drawn from her life as a military wife"She’d built a career and a dedicated following writing romances, often drawing on her experience as a military wife." Alexandra Alter, The New York Times, Nov. 6, 2023
The tradition it sits in
- statedViolet Sorrengail answered the powerful heroines of the fantasy Yarros read growing up"I wanted to tell a story about a girl who should not succeed, and who should not be able to endure an overly brutal environment." Rebecca Yarros to Alexandra Alter, The New York Times, Nov. 6, 2023
- documentedFourth Wing (2023) comes from romantasy, the romance-fantasy blend that also includes Sarah J. Maas's A Court of Thorns and Roses"are among the many helping to popularize the romance-fantasy genre, also called “Romantasy.”" Moises Mendez II, TIME, November 7, 2023
Where the whole form comes from
- inferredViolet's mother, the commanding general of the war college comes from Yarros's own parents, both retired lieutenant colonels, in a family where her grandfather was a general"Yarros grew up as the youngest of four in a military family — her grandfather was a general, and both her mother and father are retired lieutenant colonels." inferred — The New York Times (2023) reports both Yarros's military family and Violet's general mother, but neither the paper nor Yarros draws the line between them
- documentedFourth Wing (2023) comes from Yarros's life in a military family, and her chronic illness"Yarros drew on her experience with chronic illness and life in a military family to write “Fourth Wing,”" Alexandra Alter, The New York Times, Nov. 6, 2023
Start here