Everything We Know About 'A Court of Thorns and Roses' Book Six, From the Release Date to the Plot

Every so often, a fantasy series comes along that changes the course of literary history. In the ‘50s, it was The Lord of the Rings. The ‘90s, meanwhile, belonged to J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire—a.k.a. the basis for the HBO smash Game of Thrones. And in recent years, a new collection of books based on all things mystical and magical was crowned king of the culture mountaintop: Sarah J. Maas’s A Court of Thorns and Roses, or what fans have dubbed ACOTAR.

Despite the first book in the series originally releasing in 2015, the romantasy series centered on faeries, ghoulish creatures, and otherworldly realms experienced a major revival in the past few years after earning its stripes as a #BookTok favorite. 10s of millions of copies sold and more than 14 billion TikTok views later, Maas is still exploring the faerie-based world of Prythian, with a sixth (and seventh!) book currently in the works.

Whether you’re new to the series and looking to find out more before this sure-to-be New York Times Best Seller drops, or you're a longtime stan, we’ve got everything you need to know about the latest installment. From the subject (confirmed) to the number of books Maas has planned (suspected), here’s everything we know about ACOTAR book six—and beyond.

What is the 'A Court of Thorns and Roses' book series about?

At its core, A Court of Thorns and Roses is a series about love. Following a young woman named Feyre whose life is forever changed when she is whisked away to Prythian, a magical world full of faeries, wonder, and danger, the books are largely centered around the romantic (and sometimes steamy!) relationships she forges with members of the faerie realm.

Like all great fantasy series, there’s also plenty of adventure as Feyre travels across the seven courts of the fictional faerie lands of Prythian to protect her loved ones.

Will 'A Court of Thorns and Roses' have a sixth book?

While A Court of Thorns and Roses was originally meant to be a trilogy, Maas has already published five books—and more are on the way. The author confirmed that a sixth book is coming during a January 2024 TODAY appearance. “The next [book] I’m supposed to be writing right now…I know much more about. That’s gonna be the next Court of Thorns and Roses book,” she revealed.

She also hinted that there will eventually be a book seven. “The next book in that series, I have the ideas and general, vague thoughts.”

According to a Bloomsbury Publishing press release, Maas, who has also authored two other series (Throne of Glass and Crescent City), is under contract to pen four additional books beyond the three she was already under contract for in 2023. It's unclear which of her three book series she will explore with these new works, but we know that at least technically three ACOTAR books are coming (we'll explain more about that below).

When will 'A Court of Thorns and Roses' Book 6 be released?

Mark your calendar because you're going to have a lot of reading to do this fall! Just in time for spooky season, ACOTAR Book 6 will officially be published on October 27, 2026. Maas officially revealed the news while appearing on a March 2026 episode of the "Call Her Daddy" podcast.

"I've been working and working on that. It's been a long time coming...it took me a long time to write, just because there were enough things going on in my life that I had to sort through," the author said on the pod. "It's taken a while because it took me a while to find the right story and to be in the right headspace. And then...it poured out very quickly."

She explains that spending time to write out west helped spark creativity. Maas explained, "I was in Montana this summer and, I don't know, I think there's some kinda like energy vortex, around Big Sky, because I just got there and it clicked. It all came out of me."

That certainly makes sense, considering that in July 2025, the author confirmed on Instagram that she had officially finished the first draft of the book, along with a video from a scenic locale from her writing retreat. "First drafts DONE," she wrote in the caption of a video featuring her hand closing a composition notebook, slamming her laptop shut, and popping a bottle of champagne.

Fans have long predicted that 2026 was when Maas and her publisher, Bloomsbury Publishing, were aiming for A Court of Thrones and Roses Book 6. For example, Bloomsbury launched a major campaign to celebrate the franchise's 10th anniversary in 2025 (brackets! promo videos! ads overtaking the N.Y.C. subway!), so it seemed safe to say that it was also to build up hype for the next installment.

Thankfully, we know when the book will hit shelves—and that even more is on the way.

Will there be a seventh 'A Court of Thrones and Roses' book?

Book 6 isn't the only ACOTAR release on the way: Book 7 is not only confirmed, but coming out almost immediately after. As it turns out, the wait for Book 6 has been as long as it is in part because Maas wrote the following title at the same time, and it's due out January 12, 2027. She unveiled the news while on "Call Her Daddy."

While it's still a little unclear which characters the novels will focus on and how the plot unfolds, you can think of Book 7 as a continuation of Book 6. Maas shared this while speaking on "Call Her Daddy," revealing that she needed to write a very lengthy book to tell the story she wanted to, so she started envisioning it in parts. Those parts have now been split up into several installments: Part one in Book 6, parts two and three in Book 7, and part four has yet to be written, so we can assume that'll be ACOTAR Book 8.

"I decided I wasn't gonna approach this project from a, you know, traditional format of a book. And what if this story, like, what if this book was really long? Like, what if it took me more than 1000 pages to tell the story that needed to be told the arc that I wanted to create from start to finish?" she said on the podcast. "It's meant to be read ideally as one massive, massive story, as opposed to a trilogy."

Because Maas wanted to get as many parts of her next story in readers's hands as soon as possible, that's why there's so much ACOTAR coming out at once. We'll take it!

Was the next 'A Court of Thorns and Roses' book delayed?

The book wasn't necessarily delayed; Maas just took a bit longer to write it from earlier installments in the ACOTAR series. That's in part because this next effort—being parsed out in several books—is her biggest in the series yet, and because of major life changes she's experienced.

While the anticipation for Book 6 is very real, Maas's writing pace has slowed in recent years, so this wait isn't a total surprise. The fifth book in the A Court of Thorns and Roses series, A Court of Silver Flames, was released in February 2021, marking Maas’s first series contribution since 2018’s A Court of Frost and Starlight. The gap between the two books was the longest ACOTAR fans have endured. Before that, books had come out once a year since the debut novel arrived in 2015.

Simultaneously, however, she's been releasing Throne of Glass books, and, in recent years, her Crescent City series has hit shelves (the first in the series, House of Earth and Blood, was published in 2020, House of Sky and Breath in 2022, just one year after ACOTAR book five, House of Sky and Breath in 2022, and the House of Flame and Shadow in 2024). So, it's not like Maas hasn't been picking up the pen by any means. Her focus has just been elsewhere—and she's experienced some major life changes.

While speaking to TODAY, the author opened up about how having children (she welcomed her first child in 2018 and her second in 2022) changed her work process. She said, "Before I had kids, I was writing two books a year, but I also had no social life...Like, I was basically Gollum in my little writing cave, just writing all day. But now I get to see the sunlight thanks to my children needing to, like, go out to school. So the writing pace has slowed down a little bit—you know, a book a year, a book every year and a half. It’s a tough thing, to have a job and to need to show up and focus on that job, but then to also be able to focus on your children."

More recently, on "Call Her Daddy," she also opened up about the challenge of returning to the world of ACOTAR after working on other projects and experiencing changes in her personal life. "It was obviously hard and again, there's an element to it where I'm like, 'Okay,' shit that was tricky unrelated to the books, but related to the books, that I had to navigate and figure out and I wasn't ever gonna force myself to write a book 'cause like that doesn't make a good book, but I'm also someone who, like I take no shit from myself where I'm like, if I feel like I have writer's block, I'm like, 'Get your in the chair and work,' but this was different."

She continued, "I needed to get something sorted out first, and so this came out, like when this right story hit me, it hit me hard. And I had a vision from the start of what it would be, how I would deliver it to you guys and that's what I want to do and getting to be in the driver's seat and decide like this is how I wanna tell stories and if I want to adapt it for every new book or just like arc, I can do that. I can do that, and why not? Why can't we tell, like why do we have to like stick to these boxes of this is how you tell a story from A to B. I'm like, 'What if we do something different?'"

For eager readers who may have powered through the series in the few short years since it's taken off on #BookTok, it may seem like the wait is endless—but rest assured, she was working hard and being more mindful of her work/life balance.

Will 'A Court of Thorns and Roses' Book 6 be about Elain?

Maas hasn't confirmed the plot of ACOTAR Book 6 (or how it continues in Book 7, for that matter), though many fans are certain it will be about Feyre's youngest sister, Elain. As longtime fans have speculated, the novel may very well be in part about Elain's love triangle with Azriel and Lucien. This seems hinted at in the last book, in which a spark ignites between Elain and Azriel.

How do we know the book might be about Elain? Well, although Maas hasn't shared any updates since then, in a 2021 Instagram live, she did tease the heroine. “I know who it’s about,” she teased, adding, “I thought it was pretty obvious!” (The fifth book, A Court of Silver Flames, is about Feyre's older sister, Nesta.)

In a September 2022 LiveTalksLA interview, the author also spoke about working on a book about the main heroine's younger sister. “As soon as [Feyre's older sister] Nesta and Elain came back onto the page in A Court of Mist and Fury, I knew that they would have journeys beyond, like, what the readers were seeing,” she explained. “They were in the middle of their own journeys.”

What’s more, Maas, who told the outlet that writing about her main characters is almost like a form of “method acting” (“I think so deeply into their psyche that I've, like, become them”), has seemingly spent some serious time in Elain’s shoes. In a Q&A at the back of her 2018 novella, A Court of Frost and Starlight, she reportedly confessed to slipping “into Elain’s head” while gardening. “Elain is a gardener, and everything I did during those weeks became research for her book,” she quipped.

All the details we know about 'A Court of Thorns and Roses' Book 6

With so much anticipation surrounding ACOTAR's newest release, rumors have begun to swirl online. Little is known about the upcoming novel, but fans paying close attention may have picked up a few true hints the romantasy writer has dropped.

We also know that Book 6 will be lengthy—no novellas here. “No surprise, it’s going to be a long book,” the writer shared in a December 2024 video for Spotify Wrapped.

As for more about the plot, Maas remains tight-lipped. “It’s too early for me to tell you…what’s going to happen,” she teased. Still, we have reason to believe that Elain is the focus.

How to read the 'A Court of Thorns and Roses' books in order

To read the ACOTAR books in order, you start with the titular novel, A Court of Thorns and Roses (2015). The second book in the series is A Court of Mist and Fury (2016) and should be followed by A Court of Wings and Ruin (2017). The fourth book is a novella called A Court of Frost and Starlight (2018), while the fifth book, centered on Nesta, is A Court of Silver Flames (2021).

The sixth and seventh books in the series, the titles of which are still unknown, are not yet published but should become available for pre-order soon.

What is the fifth 'A Court of Thorns and Roses' book about?

If you're getting ahead of yourself and haven't caught up in the series quite yet, at least you have five lengthy reads to enjoy. The fifth book was released in 2021 and is a fan favorite. Unlike books one through four, which focus on Feyre, the fifth installment of A Court of Thorns and Roses, A Court of Silver Flames, is centered on Feyre’s older sister, Nesta, and her budding romance with the Illyrian warrior Cassian. Together, the two must face demons amid their internal traumas to confront the growing threats against Prythian and find their place within its borders.

Will there be 'A Court of Thorns and Roses' TV show?

While Maas was previously in talks with Hulu and 20th Television to develop a TV series based on the best-selling books, Deadline reported in February 2025 that Hulu is no longer moving forward with the project. Screenwriter Ron Moore (known for his work on hit sci-fi and fantasy hits like Battlestar Galactica and Outlander) was attached to helm the show; however, he left his partnership with 20th Television to reteam with Sony Pictures Television, which is rumored to be the reason why the show is not going ahead at Hulu.

Fear not, though: Maas is still in talks with Hulu to develop other adaptations of her IP. And according to Variety, the ACOTAR series is being shopped to other networks(!). It just might be a while before it hits our screens.

On "Call Her Daddy," the author confirmed that she got the rights back to ACOTAR and will revisit the show's development "at some point soon," but right now she's focused on the source material.

When she does turn her attention to the adaptation, Maas says she wants full creative control. "It's something that I want to be in charge of, I want to be figuring out, like I want to be learning everything that I can," she said. "I'm a type A control freak a little bit, but I want to know everything about how it gets made, not because of that control, but just because I love movies. I love TV. I want to be a part of that, and I want to see everything adapted the way I envision it and the way I know fans want it."

In the meantime, it sounds like fans will have a lot of reading to do—and channel all the faerie magic, and hope we see the world of Prythian on screen soon!