Armies gather and old gods wake as she races to unite a fractured continent against a coming darkness.
- Score
- 86.7
- Spice
- 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️Spicy
- POV
- multi
- Ending
- HEA / HFN
Tropes
Content warnings
Curated signals, not an exhaustive guarantee.
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What readers think
Empire of Storms lands among the most divisive — yet most read — entries in the series. Devoted fans praise the escalating stakes, the satisfying payoff of the Aelin/Rowan slow-burn finally turning explicit, Manon's expanding moral complexity, and the series-recontextualising twist in the final pages. Critics — particularly those who started the series as YA readers — find the abrupt jump in sexual content jarring and feel it crowds out the fantasy plot, with one widely-cited review describing it as 'downright NA erotica scenes at least once every 70 pages.' Character dialogue is frequently cited as sounding homogeneous across the cast, and the ending's structural similarity to A Court of Mist and Fury (published the same year) drew accusations of self-repetition. The absence of Chaol — a fan favourite — throughout the book also splits readers. Despite criticisms, the final hundred pages are almost universally described as gripping, propulsive, and emotionally gutting.
Read it if
- · Series readers who have completed Queen of Shadows and are ready for the romantic payoff and world-shaking plot escalation
- · Fans who enjoy multi-POV epic fantasy with morally complex side characters — Manon and Elide are standout performers here
- · Readers who want spicy romantasy woven into a genuine high-fantasy stakes narrative rather than pure contemporary romance
Skip it if
- · You began the series expecting YA and are uncomfortable with the series' sharp shift to explicit sexual content
- · Unresolved cliffhangers are a dealbreaker — the ending is one of the most shocking in the series
- · You haven't read books 1–4; this instalment is dense with payoffs that require full series context
If you liked this
- · For fans of A Court of Mist and Fury by Sarah J. Maas — same author's voice, fated-mates intensity, and found-family ensemble at war
- · For fans of Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros — spicy romantasy with a fierce heroine, fated bonds, and world-ending stakes
- · For fans of An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir — brutal empire, morally grey characters, and a hero's quest against impossible odds
- · For fans of Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo — ensemble cast with sharp banter, multi-POV heist-style plotting, and high emotional cost
In this series
Part of Throne of Glass — read in order:
- ·The Assassin's Blade
- 1Throne of Glass
- 2Crown of Midnight
- 3Heir of Fire
- 4Queen of Shadows
- 5Empire of Stormsyou’re here
- 6Tower of Dawn
- 7Kingdom of Ash
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